


Blood on my name

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Topsy Turvy Ficfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:12:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 32,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3641379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tom Neville rode into Sylvania Estates he found a small, rural community with a still, a bunch of sheep and no idea who Ben Matheson was. With no sign of the Mathesons he was searching for, he rode on. In a seedy Chicago bar, Miles Matheson never had a visit from an earnest girl who called him family and Rachel never had the chance to escape captivity. A lot of things changed when Neville didn't find Ben, but some things stayed the same. The Patriots still invaded, Bass and Miles still make a deadly team, and they still need to recruit mercenaries...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's a reckonin' a-coming, and it burns beyond the grave

A woman screamed, the uncertain wobble of someone not entirely sure whether they were scared or thrilled, and a man roared, ‘Bastard’. The sound of wood breaking cracked through the camp and the familiar bedlam of a gang of bored assholes jeering on a fight. 

‘Well, shit,’ Lot drawled. It was a good hand too. Callused fingers tapped the cards together, King of Hearts staring up with blank eyes as he tried to carry out his cardboard suicide. ‘I don’t suppose we can take a recess while I deal with that?’

Duncan laughed, dark eyes flashing with sly humour. She slouched back in the chair, bracing a worn boot on the edge of the crate they were using as a makeshift table. ‘Sure, and then I’ll go find myself a nice farmboy with a big dick to settle down with.’ She rolled her head to the side, smirking over her shoulder at Garrett. ‘Don’t worry, darlin’. I’ll share.’

His mouth tightened, but he ignored her. ‘In or out, Lot. Pick your poison.’

Someone whooped, and Lot could hear the familiar banter of bets being laid. Someone was getting their ass kicked, and even without being there it was easy enough to guess who. Lot flicked the cards and thought about just fucking  not . The cards were being sweet and Duncan had never met a losing bet she didn't like. Just this once, let him drag his own ass out of the fire...

‘Fuck you both.’

The cards scattered over the table, as Lot got up and stalked off. At the table Duncan cracked her neck, pretending she wasn't dry-mouthed relieved, and gave Garrett her best, shit-eating grin. 'Split the pot?'

Mood brewing darkly, Lot loped across camp towards the brawl. It wasn’t the first. The yearly Thing was supposed to give the various tribes a chance to adjudicate any disputes too big to be resolved by punching each other that had arisen since the  last  Thing. Contract disputes, boundaries, water rights - the sort of things that lead to massacres not just a nice bit of murdering.

Problem was, it was also a great way for people who didn’t see each other for years at a time to settle disputes that  weren’t  too big for punching. Or start new ones.

Lot shoved through, elbows and bad reputation clearing a path, until the weight of the mob was behind and  shoving.  The front line of observers parted and Lot stalked into the make-do ring of the fight.

It was one of Andover's lot, all bad ink and a thousand yard stare. He was kneeling over a prone body in the dust, hammering blows down as punctuation for his foul mouthed rant.

'Don't. You. Ever. Touch. My. Fucking. Woman. You Mother -'

The hair was a tempting target, a nest of greasy ginger braids, but Andover’s lot buried shards of shit and blood soaked bone in their hair. Do that once, and you learned. Or you died. Either way, it was a win for your tribe. 

Lot put a boot to the guy’s ass instead, kicking him off his prone victim. The ginger man went sprawling and the crowd roared with laughter, Lot’s tribe hooting support and shouting new odds to whoever was running book.

Assholes.

The ginger man rolled over and to his feet, a grimy looking knife clutched in his hand and lips peeled back from black gums and stained teeth. He had enough sense to look uncertain when he saw Lot, but not enough to back down.

‘I will fucking  end  you,’ he snarled. ‘Traitor.’

He lunged forward, knife held low and hard to grab. Lot side-stepped the rush, hooked a booted foot around his ankle and slammed an elbow into the space between his shoulderblades. The guy went down hard, face bouncing off the stony ground, but scrambled back to his feet again. 

‘Back down,’ Lot said flatly. ‘Only warning.’

Maybe the guy would have. He hesitated. Before he could decide, a shot cracked and his brains splattered the front row of gawkers. Some of them screamed, startled as little kids, and even the guy looked surprised, his own bones caught in those ugly ginger braids, in the second before his body folded to the ground. Lot watched him go down and then turned to look at Andover, with his shiny round face and shabby suit.

‘Now let that be a lesson to you all,’ Andover said, all smiles and his nasty little derringer in one hand. ‘Lot might have abandoned our tribe, but there’s no ill will. Don’t want to hear anymore of this ‘traitor’ talk.’

The ‘not right out in public, where anyone can hear, you idiot’ hung silent in the air. Andover tucked his gun into his pocket and waved his hand, two of his best boys shambling forwards to collect their dead tribesman. They grabbed his feet and dragged him away, leaving a trail of blood and diminishing brain bits behind him.

Lot turned to the boy on the ground and scowled. ‘You fucking idiot.’

He grinned, splitting his lip, and stuck up a hand. It was grubby and he’d been biting his nails again. Sometimes Lot thought about cutting it off at the wrist and wearing it like a necklace, like one of the bear-fuckers that ran in the mountains.  ‘Happy now, mom?’

Instead their fingers interlocked and a yank got him back on his feet, draping a heavy arm over Lot’s shoulder for support.

‘Naw,’ he said, still grinning. ‘I knew you’d got my back, Charlie.’

Lot jabbed an elbow into his rib, making him grunt. ‘I’ve told you, don’t call me that.’

He gave her a sweaty, smelly hug and rested his face against her hair. ‘Aw, c’mon, Charlie. If I don’t, who will?’

Anyone else -  anyone -  she’d have left yelping in the dirt. Except this was Danny, and she had to take care of him. Because it wasn’t like their fucking parents had ever managed, had they? Besides, he was right. He was the only one that remembered Charlie.

‘You’re still a fucking idiot,’ she growled, hooking her hand in the back of his pants to drag him along as they headed back to camp. A black glower got anyone that tried to interfere out of the way. ‘And I had to throw in the game with Duncan, when I had her on the  hook.  For what? Five minutes of armpit stank and a dose of the crabs?’

He gave her a reproachful look. ‘You’ve got no romance in your soul, Charlie.’

She snorted. ‘I’ve got no soul, little brother, so that’s not a surprise.

Behind them a woman started to keen. Lot closed her ears to it. There was no-one in Andover’s camp who didn’t know who the Matheson siblings were, so fucking Danny had been a set up. Whatever punishment she’d get for fucking the trap up? It was what she’d signed up for. 

Hopefully, they’d be done with her by nightfall. It was harder not to care when you couldn’t sleep.

Since they were here for a week or more, one of the spouses had set up the sweat lodge. Lot dragged Danny in with her, letting his bruises soak up the heat while she stitched up his eyebrow. Thin sheets preserved the illusion of modesty.

It wasn’t about what people thought.

Most people figured they were fucking  anyhow . Even if they knew they were brother and sister, sometimes especially if they knew. Thing was, there had been a time it would have been easier. They’d been teenagers, fucked up beyond telling and only had each other. 

Only they hadn’t. So...they made a point of the trappings, just to keep that clear to themselves.

‘One day, I’m not gonna get there in time,’ Lot said, sitting down opposite Danny and propping her feet on the bench. She stretched her toes out like a cat to make them pop. Danny made a gagging noise.

‘That’s freaky. And smelly,’ he said, pushing her feet off the bench. He leaned forwards, bracing his elbows on his knees. Old scars stretched over his shoulders, tugging at the skin in tight lines. ‘Besides, if you didn’t have me to get out of trouble, what would you do with yourself, sis?’

Lot raised an eyebrow at him, ‘Well, I’d have got a brace of those new shotguns off Duncan, at the least,’ she said. ‘It’s not a joke, Danny. One day someone’s going to get lucky in a fight and kill me, then you’ll have to get  yourself out of trouble.’

He grimaced. ‘That’s not funny, Charlie.’

‘I should fucking hope not,’ she said. Reaching over she grabbed the ladle from the bucket, tossing a splash of water over the smouldering firepit. It belched, filling the room with the smell of heat and woodsmoke. ‘I’m just saying, this life we lead? I’m not likely to get to retire and go breed horses, you know?’

‘But I will?’ Danny asked. ‘What happens, you get killed and I just grab our stash and run?’

‘Fuck yeah. You step over my corpse and you  go.’

‘Fuck you,’ he snapped, anger creasing a scowl into his face. ‘You think I’m just going to...’

A stutter of gunfire cracked through the camp, interrupting him. They both glanced up, but didn’t bother to move. It wasn’t unusual. Everyone had a gun, most people had a grudge, no-one had good self-control. Only this time it didn’t stop, and people were starting to scream.

Lot grabbed her jeans and scrambled into them, wrenching tight denim up long legs. Her belt hung loose, metal loops jangling, as she grabbed her jacket and ran barefoot for the door. She shouldered it open and scrambled out, dragging her jacket on over bare skin.

There were dead bodies on the ground, blood soaking into the hard ground, and her people were running for cover. ‘What happened?’ she yelled, grabbing someone by the arm. Davies, she realised as he jerked his head around to stare at her. ‘Who the fuck is it?’

Davies shook his head. ‘I don’t know, boss,’ he said. ‘Fuckers just appeared and started shooting.’

Lot yanked the zipper up, leather cold against bare skin. ‘Get to Duncan. She got here first, got the most defensible camp. You take the kids and non-fighters, I’ll make sure you’re covered. Move.’

He jerked his head down in a nod and took off, zig zagging across the open ground. Lot pulled her gun and ran towards the sound of gunfire. Who the hell would do this? There were tribes with grudges, but this? The remaining tribes would band together to wipe them out. 

Andover?

She’d not put it past him, but she saw his people dead on the ground too.

Which means what?  A cold little voice asked in her head.  You know him better than that. 

Danny caught up with her as they reached the main fight. A man turned, gun swinging around to aim at her. She shot him in the face and grabbed her sword, dropping to her knee and gutting the guy coming up on her right. He doubled over, eyes wide and surprised, and she cut his throat on the backstroke. Danny shot another man in the knee and thrust his sword into his stomach, kicking the man off when he clung. Fingers dropped to the ground with a macabre patter.

Drab buff coloured uniforms, tags sewn over the breast pockets. Soldiers. Not Texas though, or militia. Lot hopped to her feet and gave Danny a baffled look.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

  
  
  
  



	2. It's lead inside my belly, cos my soul has lost its way

The bonfire could be seen for miles, seen and smelt. It was a distressing truth that burning bodies just smelt like meat. Lot wiped her face on her sleeve, blood and bits clotting on the fabric. She was nursing her arm, her bicep cut open from shoulder to elbow. The pain was a low, steady throb that sharpened to static agony every time she forgot and tried to move it.

There was no time to stitch it up yet. It was just roughly bandaged, an old shirt torn and roughly wrapped over her jacket. In the dark, her hand was dark with blood. It cracked when she moved her fingers.

‘How many dead?’ she asked Davies.

He rubbed his fingers through his beard, picking at the blisters. He’d caught the edge of an explosion, burns scabbing up his face and arm.

‘Eight people,’' he said. 'Only three fighters though.'

Could have been worse, Lot supposed, could have been better. Other tribes had lost more, but other tribes were bigger. Three fighters down. That left fifteen warriors, if they rousted Gwennie away from her baby and didn’t put Davies on the sick list. She went to rake her hair back from her face, aborting the gesture when her arm screamed.

Shut up, she told her body. She was left-handed, it was her right arm. The sick list was for the sick, not the winged.

‘Tell me the names of the dead later,’ she said, making herself straighten up. The inside of her sleeve felt wet with blood, but that could wait too. ‘We need to move before they start looking to mop up the stragglers. Get everyone up and moving.’

Davies hesitated, his eyes bright and angry over scorch-red cheekbones. ‘We can’t let this stand, boss.’

Lot tongued her lower lip, tasting blood and soot. ‘We’re gonna let it stand,’ she said flatly. Davies scowled, but had the wit not to argue with her. ‘For now. Get the scouts out, find us a clear run. When we come back, then we get to knock shit down.’

A grin flashed white and feral over his face. ‘I do like knocking shit down.’

He ducked his head and stalked off, rousting up Jaz and Danny. Before they ran out, Lot caught her brother’s eye.

‘Fuck you,’ he mouthed at her.

She laughed, even though it hurt. Then she got the rest of the fighters, cuffing them up from their exhausted sprawls. ‘What are you, Texans?’ she growled, dragging one bloodied woman from the kid’s cart. ‘Gonna sit and wait for the Rangers to come save you? We’re Plains. People need saving from us. Now get a weapon, or I kill you myself.’

Allie glared at her with blood-shot, empty eyes. ‘My daughter...my kid’s dead, you bitch. What the fuck do I care-’

Lot punched her in the face, sending her sprawling on the ground. The kids on the cart watched with huge, shocky eyes, set in bloody, grubby face. Allie rolled over, bracing her herself on her elbow. Blood and spit drooled from mashed lips. She spat and lurched up, swinging for Lot.

Side-stepping, Lot grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back. When Allie kept struggling, Lot wrenched until she could feel bone grind. A tight, reluctant whine escaped Allie and she went still. Fingers digging into Allie’s wiry forearm, Lot pointed her at the cart. ‘Your kid’s dead. They aren’t. I intend to keep it that way. Either help, or get out of my way. Understand?’

After a tense second, Allie tucked her chin in what Lot decided was a nod. She let go of her arm, taking a wary step back just in case. Only Allie just slumped, wiping her sleeve over her mouth. Her eyes stayed on the cart, soaking in the living children.

‘I want a chance to kill those bastards down there,’ she said.

‘You’ll get it,’ Lot said.

Allie nodded, sniffed and grabbed her weapons from the cart, slinging her sword belt around her hips. ‘Her name was Claudia.’

‘I know.’

Allie turned around and flung her arms around Lot, squeezing tight and desperate. Her face was buried in Lot’s shoulder, her close shaved head itching her cheek. ‘Thanks, boss.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Lot cracked roughly, hugging back one-armed. ‘Perks of being one of my tribe. Lots of beatings.’

Allie snorted wetly into Lot’s neck, then pulled herself up. She took one last look at the cart and loped away to join the other fighters. Lot flexed her jarred hand, scrubbing angrily at her bruised knuckles. The kids huddled in the cart were staring at her now. She mustered a tight-lipped smile for them, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘It’s all right,’ would be a lie and the kids knew that. They were little. Not stupid.

‘Just stay down if anything happens,’ she said. ‘Run and hide if you need to. We’ll find you.’

The oldest boy nodded. He was 11-ish. Old enough for the rifle he had clutched over his shoulder, a bit young to join the fighters. For now. He was all big eyes and a serious expression.

Lot’s mouth was dry. It tasted like pennies and sourness.

_Dad wasn’t moving, blood melting the snow he was lying on. The raiders had finished with Maggie and were searching through their stuff, tossing anything they didn’t want aside. There was blood on the snow, and Dad wasn’t moving._

_Charlie hid in the bushes with her arm wrapped around Danny and her hand over his mouth. He was struggling to breath, but she couldn’t let him make a noise. That was her job, to keep Danny quiet. If the raiders found them… Her fingers tightened, digging into Danny’s face until he squirmed._

_Dad was dead, she thought._

She’d been 11. Probably. Around that, she thought. She walked over to the cart and held her hands out expectantly, raising her eyebrows. The boy’s hands tightened on the old rifle for a second and then he handed it over. Lot looked it over, running her thumb over the oiled stock and checking the trigger assembly.

‘You keep it in good condition,’ she said, handing it back. ‘That’s important.’

He gave her a quick, surprised smile and shrugged the strap back over bony shoulders, tugging it back into place. Lot gave him an approving nod and left.

The scouts found what was left of Duncan’s tribe a few miles north. They were bloodied and battered, shaken by the first major defeat in over a decade. Duncan was with them. What was left of her anyhow, body wrapped in a ragged, stained oilcloth coat. Danny and Lot stood either side of Scanlon, looking at the body on the stretcher.

‘Damn,’ Lot said. ‘I always figured she was immortal.’

Scanlon sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Nobody was sure if he was Duncan’s kid or just a foundling she’d taken in, but she’d been the only one raising him either way. His hair was matted down to his head, blood caked down his jaw.

‘Fuckers just shot her,’ he said. ‘We’d cleared our path out - your path out - and one of them just blew her head off.’

Silence dragged out, and the smell was getting hard to ignore. Lot finally coughed and scratched her head, sweat itching on her scalp. On the other side of Scanlon, Danny shot her a look. She ignored him. ‘They were wearing these badges,’ she said, fishing one out of her pocket. In the dark it was hard to see. The blood didn’t help. She’d sliced it off the uniform of one of the soldiers, and it hadn’t been a particularly tidy kill. If you squinted, you could see the old colours. She handed it to Scanlon ‘I’d heard some rumours about the rebels in the Republic, they’d stopped just trying to be a pain in Monroe’s ass. Started claiming they were the real government.

Scanlon wiped his nose on his hand. ‘Yeah. Call themselves Patriots, say Monroe’s some sort of usurper.’ He dropped the badge, it fluttered down onto Duncan’s makeshift shroud. ‘The old flag’s their symbol. We’d had a few run-ins, nothing serious. Practically fucking flirting.’

‘The Rebels though?’ Lot said, raising her eyebrows. ‘They're a joke. Five competent bombers we sent ‘em and a bunch of idiots with secret signs. They used to piss on Monroe’s flags and then run away before the militia got there. These guys were trained killers, they fought like us, and they had way too much good gear for the rebels.'

Scanlon shrugged. 'All I know,' he said. 'Monroe seemed to take them seriously. He came around looking to hire us a few weeks back, Duncan knocked him back. They had history.'

'Yeah,' Danny said. 'We don't though, right?'

Scanlon was shaking his head before she finished the sentence. 'Naw. I ain't going against Duncan on this.'

'Duncan's dead,' Lot said. 'She doesn't get a say.'

'You're a cold bitch,' Scanlon rasped.

'Yeah,' Danny said. 'We're working on that. She ain't wrong though.'

Lot put her hand on Scanlon's shoulder. 'If you want revenge, we need Monroe. Whatever history Duncan had with him, I bet she's more pissed with the guy who blew half her head off.'

Scanlon grimaced, muscles flexing painfully in his jaw, and slapped her hand off his shoulder. 'What I want is to bury Duncan,' he said. His throat worked as he swallowed hard, then he gave Lot an unfriendly look. 'Then we go find Monroe. Now piss off, Lot, before I forget we're allies.'

She turned on her heel, digging divots out of the hard soil, and stalked away. Danny lingered, muttering something to Scanlon, then jogged after her. 'Even for you-' he said.

'You know why _no-one_ screws with the Plains?' Lot interrupted him.

Danny shrugged. 'Because everyone knows its a bad idea?'

'Yeah, but stories like this get out,' Lot said. 'Someone walks into the Plains, catches us all with our pants round our ankles, and damn near wipes out our most powerful clans?'

He made a sceptical noise. Lot gave him an annoyed look. 'Not counting us, idiot. Thing is, all of a sudden it doesn't look like all that big a deal to mess with the Plains. So we need to hit these 'Patriots' hard and bloody as soon as we can. I've no time to coddle Scanlon through this.'

  



	3. Oh, Lazarus, How did your debts get paid

The sun beat down on New Vegas as if it could sweat the sin out. Broken halves of DVDs were strung up on garlands, shedding prisms over the hard packed sand, and a sweaty talker in high-cut shorts and a tight t-shirt was grinding the pitch from the bally stage.

‘Girls, boys, little bit of both,’ the talked chanted, spinning a gold-plated baton around narrow hips. ‘A tisket, a tasket, we sell them by the basket, darlings. Just come on through the golden arches.’

Reaching up, the talker whacked the baton off the vandalised McDonald’s sign suspended over the entrance.

Lot bent over, shaking her hair out in heavy mass of wavy, dusty gold. She buried her hands in it, twisting it up into a messy knot on top of her head. Two slender knives she’d cozened from Duncan’s - well, Scanlon’s now - blacksmith clipped the mess back. One day she’d cut it all off, but she was vain enough not to want to.

_‘Now which is which?’ Dad said, mugging confusion as he glanced between Charlie and her mum. ‘Two peas in a pod, my pretty blonde girls.’_

Lot twitched away from the memory and glanced over at Scanlon. His skin had gone lobster red under the sun, peeling over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. She jerked her thumb at the fence-caged moveable city - taking a break in its circuit of the Plains to suck up some cash. ‘Seriously? Half the Republic is in open rebellion and the Scourge of Scranton is getting lap-dances in Ma Sadie’s?’

Behind her, Danny snorted a laugh. Scanlon glared at both of them.

‘Duncan knew Monroe,’ he said. ‘He’d meet with her. Us, we need an in and I have a contact here.’

Lot shrugged and waved a grubby hand. ‘After you then.’

Scanlon turned and raked his eyes over Danny, from scruffy blond head to battered boots. ‘We’re taking jail bait with us?’

He got a jabbed up finger from Danny for that.

‘I’m taking someone to watch my back,’ Lot said. ‘Andover’s still in the wind.’

‘We don’t know he was involved.’

Lot snorted. ‘Don’t know he wasn’t either.'

They headed down into Vegas. The talker flashed a wink at Danny on the way by and tossed him a glittering silver coin.

'First rides free, pretty.'

Danny grabbed it out of the air with a grin, tucking it into his pocket.

'How many of those you got now?' Scanlon asked wryly.

'Dozen?' Danny hazarded. 'It don't seem right to use them under false pretences.'

'You could give me one.'

'They'd wonder about how you got the clap,' Lot noted mildly.

If Scanlon hadn't already been red, he'd have turned it then. He stumbled over his feet and glared at Lot. 'I don't have the clap.'

'That's what someone who has the clap would say,' Danny noted.

'I fucking don't.'

'Hey, it's none of my business,' Lot said. She paused, eyes flicking back over the shadows between two caravans. 'On your nine,' she murmured. 'They aren't locals. Your boys run the border with the Republic...'

Scanlon nodded. 'Militia,' he said. 'Got their arms covered and their right shoulder got that dip.'

Lot filed the stance away, along with the way Rangers tilted their head like they were expecting a brim and the lazy hands Cali soldiers had.

'Here to make trouble?'

Scanlon shook his head. ‘More likely to keep an eye on my contact. Monroe ain’t happy letting this guy out of his sight.’

Lot nodded. ‘Like you and the clap.’

Danny snorted out a laugh and whacked Scanlon on the back. ‘Ignore her. She’s just jealous because she ain’t got laid in months.’

The good-natured bickering rattled back and forth, verbal camouflage for sword-callused hands and the shifting eyes that tracked the guards, weapons and security measures. Habit. Mostly. The plains tribes had been looking for ways to get their sticky fingers into New Vegas’ strongboxes for years.

New Vegas air smelled like sex, sweat and hot oil. Vendors with pots of hot oil and bubbling brine hawked sausages and greasy bags of flavoured popcorn. Whores sprawled on the steps of caravans in leather and spangles, flashing kohl-smoky eyes and oiled legs. Lot caught the eye of a handsome boy with glitter-caked on his nipples and a buzz-fuzz of stubble shadowing his scalp. He winked at her. Lot grinned at him.

‘Ha,’ Danny crowed, slinging his arm over Scanlon’s shoulder. ‘See? Told ya. She’s all backed up, makes her bitchy.’

Dragging her attention from the pretty hooker, Lot rolled her eyes at her brother. ‘Me? When was the last time you got laid without it being interrupted by a beating?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe that’s what I’m into, sis.’

Glancing back over her shoulder at the hooker, Lot quirked her mouth thoughtfully. Maybe it had been too long. She could do with something to take her mind off things. Maybe later.

The main tent was a faded big top, sun bleaching red down to tan and sand turning white dusty. Two big guys in leather vests stood outside. One had scars grooved into his bald scalp, jagged white lines dented into tanned skin, and the other wore a ring of scalps on his hip. Lot’s eyes ticked down out of habit. Wearing trophies meant you were an asshole, wearing a lot of trophies might mean you were a dangerous asshole.

Or, her mouth twitched briefly as a quick glance identified squirrel and rat, an idiot with a loose purse.

A beefy arm barred the way into the tent as the two men looked them over. ‘You got cash? Ain’t nobody gonna let you drink for tricks here.’

Lot gave them a sliding, easy smile. ‘Now don’t say that, you don’t know what tricks I can do.’

Both sets of eyes hit her hips. The scarred man was checking out the well-worn hilt of her sword, the idiot just checking out her curves. What there were of them.

Scanlon flashed a handful of glitter and they were waved through. Idiot slapped Lot’s ass, hard enough to make her grimace. She twisted around to grin at him, the edges of the smile making him look suddenly uncertain. The flaps swung shut behind him.

It was smoky-hot in the tent, stinking oil lanterns burning fitfully on hooks, and the rattle and thud of dice hitting wood underscored the low mutter of conversation. A few tables were playing cards, handfuls of diamonds changing hands on the turn of a card. Lot stalled between steps, avaricious habit making her fingers twitch.

Her last game hadn’t ended well though, and now wasn’t the time to push her lucky. She caught up the missed step and fell in between the other two. They headed up to the bar, signalling the barman for a bottle of whiskey. Lot leaned back, her elbows braced behind her, and scanned the tent. Ely Gould was holding court at his table with his pretties, heavy gold chains on his wrists and his bodyguards hanging out behind him. Another militia soldier, not-drinking quietly in the corner.

The barman splashed a measure of too-dark whiskey into a greasy glass. Lot scooped it off the bar and took a drink, the burned-oak stink of it coating her tongue and burning her throat. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Where’s your contact?’

Scanlon downed his whiskey, twisting his mouth, and pointed at the cage in the middle of the tent. ‘Here he comes,’ he slammed the glass upside down on the counter, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be done in a minute.’

A tall, lean man stalked into the ring, draining the last dregs from a bottle. He threw it aside and wiped his hand over his mouth, splitting the cut in his lip open. He had a weeks worth of stubble on his jaw, and a night’s worth of blood on his hands. He rolled his shoulders. Lot couldn’t hear it, but she’d bet that made something in his spine click loose.

Sucking the blood off his split knuckles he looked around with dead eyes. ‘Next?’ he asked flatly.


	4. Oh, Lazarus Were you so afraid?

 

The Patriots spread over the map like a stain. Monroe moved his hand over the table, sliding the flags across the contested territory. Every bloody lost a raw affront to his pride. Fifteen years of blood and fear, friends lost and betrayed. Yet in less than a year he had lost the heartlands. Georgia up belonged to the Patriots, and the Rebels burned him in effigy and put his men in stocks.

And he sat out here, like the last Doge of Venice. Just waiting to die from dropsy and shame, while the fucking Patriots gutted his one legacy.

One of the flags snapped in his impatient finger. He flicked it aside - the petty gesture twisting his anger tighter - and walked over to the side table to pour a drink. The whiskey, at least, he could still count on. 

‘Where is he?’ Rachel demanding, walking into his tent with no fanfare. 

He tossed back the whiskey, pursing his lips around the taste, and gave her a humourless fold of his lips. ‘Come in, Rachel,’ he drawled sarcastically, waving the glass to indicate his tent. Dregs of amber liquid sloshed against the heavy, scratched crystal. ‘Make yourself at home. Would you like a drink?’

She gave him a cold look. ‘And delay the blessed moment you descend into soused insensibility, Bass? Never. Where’s Miles?’

Monroe tossed back the last trickle of liquor and turned to refill his glass. Carrying it in one hand, he walked over to his desk and sat down. The arrogant slouch of half-habit and half a deliberate piece of Rachel provocation. He sipped the whiskey, licking the drops off the rim of the glass. 

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, bracing his elbow on the carved arm of the chair. ‘Bed cold enough you can forgive him?’

Her mouth tightened and she lifted her chin, golden hair catching on the collar of her shirt. ‘Go to hell.’

‘Look around,’ he said. ‘We’re already there, Rachel, and we - at least - know who to thank.’

She walked over to the map, straightening the flags with fastidious fingers. ‘We wanted to end war, to put sociopaths like you and Miles out of a job. It would have changed the world.’

‘Well, you managed the last one,’ Monroe said. He swigged whiskey and put the glass down on the desk, staining an amber ring onto a painstakingly scrawled report. The ink smeared, blurring into the rough weave of the paper. ‘As for Miles, you know him and lowest common denominator. He’s making friends and influencing people in New Vegas.’

They agreed on not much at all, but Rachel’s impatient snort of annoyance tweaked a sort of fellow feeling out of Monroe. He doused it in whiskey and sent it on his way.

'Anything?' he asked, staring into his glass.

Rachel's back was straight as a board, and as unbending. She picked up one of the fort markers and turned it between her fingers to examine it. 'It's been years,' she said. 'People move. People with something to hide? They move a lot.'

'If I'm to believe you.'

She turned to look at him. 'You think I'd lie to you.'

He raised his eyebrows in mocking challenge of the question. 'Yes. I do.'

They stared at each other across the desk. Even before the lights went out, they'd not been friends. The pair of them had loved the Mathesons too much for that, saw how bad the other one was for them. Now...

'I despise you, Bass,' Rachel said. 'You are a paranoid, sadistic murderer and a broken little man.'

He narrowed his eyes at her. 'Watch your tone.'

'Or?'

'Or I'll remember how little our alliance has accomplished so far, Rachel.'

She crossed the room in two long strides - old habit made Monroe shift warily, even though it had been years since she'd tried to kill him - and slammed her hands down on the table. Weight braced on them she leaned forward into his space. He could smell the juniper on her breath. They all had to cope somehow, didn't they.

'The only thing in this world that scares me more than the thought of you with power? Is the thought of them with it,' Rachel hissed. 'If I could destroy you both, I would. Since I can't, I'll use you to break them. Then you can go to hell, and take Miles with you. So you can trust me, Bass, when I saw I can't find anyone. Either Flagg got there first, or they're running. So if we want to even the odds, we  need to find the Tower.'

Monroe grabbed her face, digging his fingers into the softness of her cheeks. 'That's why I'm cooling my heels on the edge of the fucking plains while the Patriots piss all over my Republic, Rachel. To find your precious Tower. Except you can't tell us exactly where it is or exactly to get there, or even exactly how to get in. I am losing patience.'

He shoved her away, making her stumble back from the table. His fingers had left red dents in her face. She didn't deign to rub them, just straightened her jacket. 

'I'll tell you everything,' she said. 'The minute I have to and not before. Let me know when Miles gets back.'

She turned and stalked out the way she'd come, ignoring the guard's polite murmurs of 'ma'am'. Alone - again - Monroe sprawled back in his chair and drank his whiskey. He'd thought that power - light and heat and fucking jet fighters that could break the sound barrier power - in a world without it would make him a god. He'd never considered what would happen if someone else got it first.

Philly had burned in a night. He'd barely got out alive, him and half the militia stationed there riding down his people in the streets to escape the next explosion. It had got him a new scar, and a new use for Rachel Matheson.

Shuffling through the whiskey damped pages on his desk he found the torn out sheet Rachel had scrawled the fob on after the first attack. It looked like an ugly keyring, something that you could bluetooth to your phone. Instead, it was the fucking One Ring - the power to rule them all.

The only saving grace that ‘all’ only counted for around nine sq foot around the fob. With that, and the Patriots still committed to playing the ‘good government’ card, they were hobbled. 

For now.

Tossing the paper aside Monroe leaned back and drank his whiskey, staring blankly over the desk at the chair where Miles should be. He wanted to talk to Miles, shake the ideas rattling around his head out and kick them around till they made sense. Miles had always been good at that. When Miles came back, Monroe had been willing to forgive everything. He’d thought it would be like it was before.

Instead, his brother was drinking with a pimp and Monroe was drinking alone.


	5. When the fires, when the fires have surrounded you

 

Two of Gould’s men hooked their arm under the fighter’s arms and dragged the shirtless, bloody man out of the ring. Lot turned her head to watch them toss him out of the tent before he put anyone off spending their cash. When she turned back around, the winning fighter was reaching over the bar to grab a bottle of whiskey. He twisted the cap off and downed a gullet full of it, pouring what was left in the bottle over split and battered knuckles.

‘You should wrap them,’ Lot told him.

He gave her a flat look out of near-black eyes. ‘You should mind your own business.’

‘Besides,’ Scanlon said, clapping the man on the shoulder. ‘Audiences like to see a bit of blood, eh Miles?’

The fighter gave the hand on his shoulder a look, that turned it on Scanlon. ‘You always wanted a stump, kid?’

Scanlon jerked his hand away, half flinching and half angry. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that. Most people assumed they’d be scared of the war clans, not the other way around.

‘Miles?’ Danny said, voice cracking with surprise and making him sound even younger than he looked. ‘Miles  Matheson?’

He’d said it. That meant Lot didn’t need to. The question still repeated itself in the confines of her skull.  Miles Matheson? Really?

‘What?’ Miles asked, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘Expecting someone more impressive?’

Lot shifted to the side, the bump of her fist against Danny’s rib old code for ‘shut up’. She gave Miles a quick once over, from the cropped scruffy hair to the battered old boots. ‘Not expecting you at all,’ she said. ‘Last we heard, everyone figured Matheson was face down in a shallow grave somewhere.’

He smirked at her, a sour twist of his mouth. ‘Old news, kid. I’m back and better than ever.’

‘Yeah,’ Scanlon said, trying to grab control of the conversation back. ‘I’d heard you were back on good terms with Monroe. That’s what we wanted to talk to you about-’

Miles raked both hands through his hair, sweat slicking it flat to his skull. ‘I’m not here to talk.’

‘Yeah, I get that,’ Scanlon said. ‘This is important though. It’s about-’

‘Tell you what,’ Miles said, tossing back another glug of whiskey and slamming the bottle down on the table. ‘Fight first, then talk. If you still can.’

‘But-’

Miles didn’t bother to let Scanlon finish, brushing him and striding back to the ring. The people who’d been whooping for him to get his face beaten in stepped out of his way. Back on the mat, Miles cracked his neck from one side to the other and paced a predator-restless back and forth.

‘He’s pretty old,’ Danny noted. ‘Maybe that other guy was just, y’know, weak?’

Scanlon glanced at Lot. ‘Paper, rock, scissors?’

She shook her head and pushed up off the bar. Deft fingers pulled the knives out of her hair, passing them to Danny, and stripped off her jacket. In jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt, she followed Miles into the ring. He turned at the distinctive chatter of quick bets and surprise slapped humanity into his face for a second.

‘I meant one of them,’ he said, jerking his head. 

Lot shrugged. ‘My brother’s a lover, not a fighter,’ she said. ‘And I could beat Scanlon’s ass like a drum all day long.’

He wiped a battered hand over his mouth. 'I don't beat on women, and I don't beat up little girls.'

'Good,' Lot said. 'That'll make this quick.'

She danced forwards and jabbed a punch at his face, bruising her knuckles on his jaw. His head snapped back and he staggered, rocked on his heels. Catching his balance he retreated a step, turning his head to spit blood on the churned dirt.

'I told you. I don't-'

Shifting her balance, feeling the fit of her joints slide and catch, Lot scythed a kick at his knees. He avoided the impact enough to keep his kneecaps, but still ended up tripped on his ass. There was mud on the knees of his jeans and an almost thoughtful look on his face as he looked up at her.

'Alright then,' he said. 'Let's see what you got...?'

'Lot,' she said. 'Like in the bible.'

Miles nodded, rubbed his knuckle over his split lip and then lunged up off the ground in one, fluid movement. His shoulder hit Lot in the gut and they both went back down. The next five minutes didn't have a whole lot of grace to them, but was packed full of rabbit punches and sharply aimed joints. Lot ended up face down on the ground, arm hooked around her throat and boozy breath against her throat.

'Give up.' He tightened his grip, making the air squeeze in her throat.

She twisted under his pinning weight and jerked her elbow up and back. The bony point of it caught his temple, jarring him enough that she struggled free. Scrambling to the side, she rolled to her feet. Her ribs ached, not enough to be cracked, and he'd split her eyebrow at some point, blood dripping down the side of her cheek. She blew it off her lips in a fine, sticky spray and squinted warily at Miles. 

His lip wasn't looking away better, and he had the mousy beginnings of a black eye blooming, but he wasn't showing any pain. That was ok. 'It take you this long to piss too, old man?' she asked,  flashing bloody teeth in a reckless grin. 

He rubbed under his eye, thumb smearing the swollen skin. ‘Take you this long to realise you’re beat, kid?’ he asked.

Lot rolled her shoulder back, feeling the click-pop of the bone over muscle. ‘Yeah, well, it’s hard to tell when I’m kicking your ass.’

She darted forward and he grabbed her arm, grabbed her hip and she went ass over tea cattle into the dirt. The landing jarred pain up her spine from her ass to her neck. Part of her brain noted the move for later, trying to map hands and hips and the weightless moment she went from being hauled to flying. She left it to that, scrambling back to her feet and round into Miles’ lunge. Grabbing his arm she twisted, trapping his arm, and hammered a quick succession of punches into his gut. 

The guy looked bony, but under the baggy t-shirt was made of wiry muscle and gristle. The knuckles ground into his solar plexus should have doubled him over, but all she got was a grunt. Damn. She let go and tried to jump back, but he grabbed a handful of shirt and yanked her back.

‘Sorry about this,’ he said, cocking his fist back.

Lot had been in fights. Most of them she’d won or drawn, that was why she was still alive. Still, she could calculate a loss. In the second between his shoulder moving and his knuckles hitting her face, she rammed her knee up between his legs. Then his fist caught her jaw and the lights went blurry.

When the grey cleared out of the world, she was hanging over someone’s shoulder getting dragged out of the tent. Danny? No. Too bony and bloody. She forced her head up and tried to get her feet under her, scowling when her ankles refused to co-operate.

‘I can walk,’ she slurred. Her jaw ached when it moved and her mouth tasted like blood. She ran her tongue over her teeth, checking for wobbles, and decided it didn’t hurt enough to be serious. ‘Get off me.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said gruffly. ‘Falling down ain’t gonna make you look any harder.’

Danny grabbed her as they got to the bar, giving Miles a flatly unfriendly look. Callused fingers poked her jaw and stomach, startling something between a wince and a snort out of her as he caught her in a ticklish spot that had bruised.

‘You ok?’ he asked, shoving her onto a stool and handing her a rag. She slouched back, decided breathing was ok, and wiped the blood out of her eye. 

‘Breathing,’ she said, crooking one side of her mouth in a smirk. That hurt.

Miles took the rag off her and poured whiskey on it before tossing it back. She grimaced and dabbed it against her eyebrow, hissing through the sting. 

‘So, you fought,’ Miles said, chewing a splinter out of his knuckles. ‘Now you get to talk. What d’y’want?’

A trickle of whiskey diluted blood ran down Lot’s face. She licked it away - salt and bite on her tongue - and looked for Scanlon. He stuffed a handful of winnings in his pocket - usually she’d growl he’d bet against her, but this was Miles Matheson, even on the Plains they’d heard the stories  - and loped back over. She ceded the flow of the conversation to him with a hitch of her chin. It hurt to talk and, besides, if she was going to play pissing games about authority there were better audiences for it.

‘Monroe’s offer of employment,’ Scanlon said. ‘We want to take him up on it, if you could-’

‘And Duncan sends her third-stringers to negotiate now?’ Miles interrupted sceptically. ‘Besides, from what I heard she was pretty damn clear about what Monroe would have to do before she’d work with him again.’

‘Things change,’ Scanlon said.

‘Duncan’s dead,’ Lot interrupted. She shrugged off his glare. ‘What are you going to do, put on a wig and pretend to be her? Patriots attacked us at the Thing-’ Off Miles’ blank look she shrugged. ‘Big clan get together.’

‘So now we have our own axe to grind with the Patriots,’ Scanlon growled, stepping forwards to catch Miles attention again. ‘So if Monroe still needs us, we’re ready.’

‘To listen to his offer,’ Lot finished for him. She waited unblinking through two sets of glares. Revenge was all well and good, but it didn’t fill a stomach or put a good knife in a kid’s hand. They were responsible for the living, not the dead. 

Brown eyes looked her up and down. His mouth cocked in a surprisingly charming smile, despite the bloody lip. ‘And what do I get out of it, darlin’?’

Danny stepped forwards, hands clenched at his sides. She grabbed the back of his trousers and tugged him back. ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘You’d only regret me later. Do we get to see Monroe or not.’

There was a pause and the Miles shrugged, an oddly elegant indifference. ‘Why the hell not,’ he said. ‘Maybe destroying your hopes and dreams will cheer him up. Let’s see.’

‘Now?’ Scanlon said.

This time the smile wasn’t charming, or really a smile. ‘Now. Or you can depend on me giving a fuck what I agreed tonight when you roll up tomorrow.’

Lot wiped the blood off her eyebrow and hands, shoving the booze stinking cloth into her pocket. ‘Now works.’

 


	6. With the hounds of hell coming after you

The sign read 'Sylvania Estate' and, based on the crops rotting in the fields and the empty pens, it had been a thriving farming community once. Now it was a military barracks, a tent city spilling out of the walls and cart-mounted machine guns set up on the perimeter. 

Lot couldn't help eyeing them on the way past. Half her mind was trying to find a way to express the 'fuck load of whatever you fancied' wealth the guns represented and half of it trying to work out the fine details of stealing one. 

'I thought you were here looking for a job, not looking to rip us off?' Miles growled. He was sobering up, it put him in a bad mood.

Twisting around to face front again, Lot shrugged. The other two had drawn ahead, matched blond heads pale in the dawn light. 'I have always been ambitious,' she said. 'You know what I could do with one of those?'

He rubbed his knuckle against his forehead, mouth twisting in a bitter line. ‘Kill people?’

‘You think too small,’ Lot told him. ‘I could kill loads of people, really efficiently.’

That got her a hard look from Miles. 

‘I am a killer,’ Lot pointed out, shifting in the saddle to stretch the cramp out of her bruised ribs. ‘That train left the station back when the lights were on. With that back there, I could be a whole different class of killer.’

Miles shook his head. Just outside camp he’d stopped and shrugged on a battered militia jacket, all the sharp edges of it worn off and wrinkled. ‘Monroe is gonna like you.’

She gave him a side-long look from under hair, the grin feeling sharp and bloody on her lips. ‘No, he won’t. Guard dogs don’t like foxes. Sometimes though, they need ‘em. That’s good enough.’

It was a throw-away bit of mockery. Lot didn’t entirely like the suddenly thoughtful expression on Miles’ face. She really didn’t like what came out of his mouth.

‘You’re smarter than you act aren’t you?’ he said. Glancing after the other two he nodded. ‘Smarter than Duncan’s second up there.’

What he thought shouldn’t have mattered. It kind of did, though. Lot scowled through the tickle of pride and shrugged. ‘Not that hard.’

Miles tongued the scab on his lip and watched as Scanlon leaned over to thump Danny on the shoulder. ‘And pretty and dumb is up there, spilling his guts to your affable young lover.’

It was actually kind of a comfort he’d got something wrong. Lot stretched again, faking preoccupation to cover discomfort. ‘You’re smarter than you act, too.’

He grunted as they caught up with the other two, pulling their horses up in front of the heavy, iron shod carts they were using as gates. ‘If I was, I’d have drunk myself to death quicker.’

He swung off his horse and stalked forward to the barricade, the soldiers’ scurrying to clear a path when the torch light hit his face. The heavy carts rolled out of the way, wheels digging ruts into the mud, and a tall boy with lice short hair threw a salute.

‘General Matheson, sir!’ He said. ‘The President wants to see you in his tent, as soon as possible, sir.’

Lot slid off her horse, the impact of her heels hitting the ground jarring everything that hurt. Danny climbed down more carefully, scratching the roan’s nose as he snuffled at his pockets. 

‘Gotta be nice,’ he said, nodding at the scuffle to impress going on.

‘Maybe,’ Lot said.

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I think he rode an hour to let people beat up on him,’ Lot shrugged. ‘Gotta be something behind that.’  
‘Maybe he’s kinky.’

She snorted. ‘Then he could pay someone to do it here,’ she said. 

Scanlon joined them, brushing the smell of horse off his leathers. ‘Do what?’ he asked.

‘Just wondering what Monroe wants mercs for,’ Lot said smoothly. She unfastened her jacket, letting it hang open, and unbuckled her sword, handing it to the disapproving looking guard. The guy was her uncle, after all. It didn’t count for a lot, but she wasn’t going to speculate on his hang-ups with Scanlon. ‘Always nice to have all the information before negotiations start. Oh and, pretty boy, don’t play with my sword? It’s not your dick, it gets touched enough.’

Colour hit the guy’s cheeks like a slap, his mouth going thin and vicious. ‘Whore.’

She laughed at him. Miles interrupted what was probably going to be a fight, ‘Neville. Get on with it, I don’t want to stand here all night.’

Breathing in through his nose, the soldier stiffened like someone had stuck a broom down his back. ‘Sir, sorry, sir.’

He hustled through the rest of their confiscation and waved them through. A lean arm stretched out and blocked Lot’s way in. 

‘What’d he miss?’

She shrugged and gave up two knives from down her sleeves with a winsome smile. Miles grunted and patted her down, hands rough and impersonally professional. He found the knives in the back of her jeans, the cuff of her boot and the two clipped into her hair - turning them over with professional appreciation.

‘Assassin’s weapons,’ he said.

She snorted. ‘Weapons are weapons.’

He grabbed her jaw and tilted her head up. The rough pad of his thumb dug into her jaw. ‘Any reason you wanted to sneak a knife into a meeting with President Monroe.’

‘I don’t like not being armed,’ Lot said calmly, looking up at him. ‘That’s all. If I wanted to kill the man, I’d not do it here. Now get your hand off me, or I break your thumbs.’

He growled something under his breath and stepped back, shaking his head. The weapons were passed to the shame-faced Neville kid, then Miles finally waved Lot through. He dropped his hand on her shoulder on the way past, falling in next to her as they walked. Lot wasn’t sure if he was this handsy with everyone, or he still thought he might get his itch scratched tonight.

‘Word of warning, kid,’ he said. ‘Monroe isn’t easy going, and he barely gives first chances never mind second ones. He found one of those knives, he’d kill you no matter what I said.’

‘I’ve heard he’s paranoid,’ Lot said. ‘The plan was for no-one to find the knives unless I needed them.’

The friendly hand tightened until her collarbone creaked and she missed a step in surprise. ‘And your easy-going friend, who looked so dismayed when you were acting up? What would I find if I frisk him?’

After a quick glance up into his grim face, Lot whistled sharply to catch Danny’s attention. He glanced around, eyes dropping to the hand on her shoulder and going hard. A twitch of her head dismissed the need for violence. 

‘Did you remember to hand in the hold-out in your boot?’

—--------

It was probably the fanciest fucking tent that Lot had ever seen. With Scanlon doing the talking, she was free to have a good gawk around. The rug under her feet was thick and yielding under her boots, deep red and covered with scrolling vines, and the desk Monroe slouched behind was huge, ornate and shinier than Lot’s sword.

An elbow jabbed into Lot’s ribs, and Danny jerked his head to the back of the tent. It was hidden behind a lattice-work screen, but when Lot leaned back she could see around it. There was a bed. An honest-to-goodness, actual bed with a huge metal headboard and quilts.

She rolled her eyes at Danny in disbelief.

‘Something you want to add?’ a cold, clipped voice interrupted them. Lot looked around and found Monroe’s cold, blue eyes focused on her with disorienting intensity. 

She coughed, uncomfortable at being caught snickering like a kid when she was meant to be a professional. Andover would have been furious with them, and the memory of his anger made her shift her weight awkwardly.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just it’s the fanciest fucking tent I’ve ever seen.’

Monroe just stared at her, sitting back and steepling his fingers together in front of him. ‘And exactly why should I care what you think?’ he asked.

Lot shrugged. ‘You shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘If I was you I’d not care what anyone thought.’

He blinked and pressed his fingers together until his knuckles went pale. Miles cleared his throat. ‘Monroe.’

If Lot had been still been gawking at the furniture she’d have missed the flit of expressions over both men’s faces. Something like pain on Monroe’s, something like sickly satisfaction on Miles’. Then both smoothed over to icy control and barely sober boredom. She filed that away for later and clasped her hands behind her back.

‘Look, you need us,’ she said.

His mouth twitched in a thin, cold smile. ‘I do?’

‘You wouldn’t have come cap in hand to Duncan if you didn’t,’ Lot said. She grabbed one of the chairs and sat down, ignoring the flinches around her. He already didn’t like her, so her sitting down wasn’t going to change anything. Leaning forwards, she clasped her hands over her knees. ‘Man like you, General Monroe, doesn’t ask for what he can take. So you need us, and now we need you too. So why don’t we quit posturing and get down to business?’

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘You always let your woman talk for you, Scanlon?’

Scanlon snorted. ‘Rather stick my dick in a meat grinder, to be honest,’ he said. ‘This is Lot. She runs one of the clans that the Patriot hit. Only got a few fighters, but she’s got a good rep.’

A sandy-brown eyebrow crawled up Monroe’s forehead and he looked her over slowly, from shoulders to cracked boots.   
‘Well, I think we can do her few fighters,’ he said dismissively. ‘Get her out of here, Scanlon. Then maybe we can do business.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ Lot said, raising her hand to ward Scanlon off.

Monroe looked amused. ‘Why not? Because you’re prettier? I prefer my women clean.’

There was a pause as she weighed her options. Decision made Lot hopped out of the seat. She walked over to the map table, fingers tracing the terrain. ‘I rode with Andover’s clan before I made my bones. His range stretched from here,’ Her forefinger landed on the border just a few miles from where they were standing, and then traced a path west to the Wastelands, ‘to here. My clan comes from tribes all across this route, so I am welcome, or at least tolerated, crossing their territory. That’s what you want right?’

The beat before he answered was answer enough. Good. She’d been guessing. It was a fairly informed guess, but still - guessing.

‘And how did you know that?’ Monroe asked, attention on Miles instead of Lot.

Lot tapped a finger on the map. She could let it stand, play the dumb girl with the inside track. It had its advantages, but she thought the disadvantages outweighed them in this case. 

‘The Republic has the biggest standing army of all the territories,’ she said. ‘Even with the losses to the Patriots, a couple of war clans from the Plains aren’t going to make a difference. Maybe if you wanted us to take the fall for some atrocity, but the Republic’s never been squeamish about getting its hands dirty. Add to that the fact the Patriots and the Rebels are eating your territory a city at a time, and you’ve come out here to the asshole of nowhere? It seemed like the bet the smart money would be on. I'm not that nice, and I'm not clean, but I am good at what I do. And if I walk right now? My price goes up when you need me back.'

Monroe had absorbed her fast-paced explanation without changing expression. 

'Then why was I talking to Scanlon?' he asked in that cold, smooth voice. It was like poison cream dripping in your ear.

'I was distracted by the tent. I mean, you have a candelabra.' Monroe didn't look amused, and Scanlon was starting to splutter. She spread her hands in a peacemaking gesture. 'You need him too. He's good - not as good as me, but good - and he has a lot more fighters than I do.'

Miles rasped out a low laugh. 'I told you she was smarter than she looks.'

'And I said that wouldn't be hard,' Monroe said acerbically, but he waved Lot back to the chair she had vacated. 'Fine, let me tell you both exactly what I need from you, and if you can make it happen...maybe I won't cut your tongue out of your head for mouthing off to me.'


	7. When the fires are consuming you

  
At some point, Lot was going to deal Monroe into a hand of poker. The man was a tightly wound collection of tics and tells under that icy mask of his hand. He tapped his thumb when he was impatient, folded his finger over his lips when he was thinking and rubbed a callused finger around and around the rim of his glass when he thought he had the upper hand. 

Restless, expressive...distracting hands.

Lot shifted, pressing her thighs together, and tried to pretend she’d not just lost a minute watching Monroe fastidiously adjust the buttons on his cuffs. 

‘ I’ve a button he could twiddle,’  the horny idiot in the back of her brain giggled. She shoved it back into a crevice and leaned forward to look at the map with everyone else. The seam of her jeans pressed up into her sex, making want twist between her legs.

‘Somewhere around Denver?’ she said, judging the area that Monroe’s finger had just circled - the man, apparently, couldn’t cut her a break - on the paper. ‘That’s a pretty big area. Do you want to narrow it down.’

He gave her a cold, tight smile. ‘No. Just get us there, we can navigate the rest of the way ourselves.’

Lot shrugged and straightened up. ‘Up to you. Of course, that brings us to the awkward part of negotiations.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Payment,’ she said. ‘No offense, but we prefer gold or stones to the Republic chits. Under the circumstances.’

Scanlon gave her a furious look across the table. ‘This isn’t about money, Lot. It’s about payback for what happened to Duncan, to our friends.’

Lot snorted at him and turned to Miles for support. ‘Revenge sounds great, but it doesn’t put food in the pot or socks on your feet. First skirmish and people are going to stop worrying about some dead people, and more about their kids starving in the winter. If we were in this for love or ideologies, we’d be wearing uniforms.’

He glanced at Monroe and shrugged one broad shoulder. ‘She ain’t wrong.’

Monroe snorted. ‘We don’t know what she thinks ideology means.’

A hand grabbed Lot’s wrist and held it down before she could show him what her finger meant. Danny leaned over her shoulder and muttered in her ear. ‘We’re winning, and even I ain’t convinced you know what that means.’

She grudgingly subsided, letting Monroe dismissively agree to the payment. On the way out, she collared Miles.

‘In advance,’ she said quietly.

He gave her a cold look. ‘You suggesting we’re not good for it?’

She shrugged and glanced back at Monroe. ‘He ain’t been. In the past. Why’d you think Duncan told him to go swivel?’

He grumbled under his breath, scrubbing his fingers roughly over the frown-lines between his eyes. ‘Fucking… Fine. I’ll sort it.’

Lot nodded her thanks and turned to go, nearly bumping into the blonde woman stalking towards the tent. Years ago, Andover had burst both her eardrums in a beating. This felt the same, a silent thunderclap of pressure that paralysed her with the unexpectedness of it. 

It had been nearly ten years. You’d not have known it, she looked the same. Long blonde hair and a pale, composed face, her eyes sharp and focused.

For a second, it was Charlie standing there. Charlie who opened her mouth, lips shaping around the word, ‘Mom?’. Ten years of pain and practice and anger gone in a second.  Except Rachel’s attention was focused on Miles. She didn’t even look at her on the way past.

‘Miles. I told Monroe to let me know when you got back,’ she said. ‘We need to talk.’

Miles sighed. ‘Rachel, now’s not a good time.’

Blue eyes swept over Charlie with absolutely no recognition and a hint of contempt. ‘This is more important than you and your latest bedmate.’

A muscle jumped in Miles jaw. He glanced at Lot. ‘I’ll sort it out.’ One hand cupped under Rachel’s elbow and he led her away, muttering something harshly in her ear. Charlie stared after them, tears tickling in her throat and at the back of her eyes.

It was Scanlon who jarred her out of it. ‘Lot? What’s crawled up your ass, you  look like you saw a ghost.’

She sniffed back the tears and shrugged. ‘Naw, just thought she was someone I owed money to.’ She dragged up a smirk from somewhere. ‘Fuck, if anything would make me believe in ghosts that would. Duncan’s revenge for all those times I emptied her pockets after a payday.’

The memory made Scanlon snort, and shoved his curiosity about her reaction out of his head. He scruffed his hand through his hair and headed for the horses, talking about how much money Duncan had owed him when she’d died. Lot took a deep breath through her nose and grabbed her brother’s shoulder, digging her fingers in until he shed the shell-shocked expression and looked down at her.

‘That was...it was?’ he said.

Lot swallowed and glanced around, unable NOT to see her mother and uncle. The world still that weird, wobbly distant feeling. 

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk back at camp, ok?’

He nodded, scrubbing his sleeve over his face. ‘I don’t...why’s she here?’

‘I don’t know.’ Danny opened his mouth to ask something else. Lot shook her head and shoved him into motion. ‘Back at camp. Not now.’

It had been a long time since Lot had cried, and it wasn’t going to be Rachel Matheson who broke that streak. Not where anyone could see anyhow.

  
  


The tent wasn’t as fancy as General Monroe’s, and Lot was willing to bet the booze wasn’t either. It’d do. She sat cross-legged on her cot, nursing a mug of something brewed from beets and grain. Danny had already downed half the bottle, drinking with the grim determination of someone who knew they had a high tolerance.

‘You said she was dead,’ he said. It wasn’t - quite - an accusation.

Dad’s eyes had been red and he smelled like Aaron. ‘Charlie, you have to be brave. You have to take care of Danny. That’s what your mom would have wanted.’ That wasn’t fair. She always took care of Danny. She already took care of Danny. Dad pulled her out of bed and bundled her into a coat it was too hot for. ‘We have to go, Charlie.’

‘Go where?’ she’d protested. ‘Mom won’t be able to find us if we leave.’

He rubbed his face, smearing away tears. She’d never seen Dad cry before, not even when Danny was really sick. ‘She’s not coming back, Charlie. She’s dead. Now help me get Danny up.’

Lot shrugged and took a drink. ‘That’s what Dad said.’

‘She looked...’

‘Bitchy?’

He twisted his mouth around the neck of the bottle. ‘Well. She looked...well.’

Well-fed, well-dressed, well able to walk out anytime she wanted. Well. Lot huffed a heavy sigh and drained her mug of whiskey. It tasted better, the more your drank. She raked her fingers through her hair, twisting it back from her face roughly.

‘Things happen, people get separated,’ Lot said. It sounded more convincing in her head than on her lips. ‘We’ve seen it happen.’

Danny turned his head and spat onto the packed dirt. ‘We saw fucking Titus Andover drag that poor cow he married back from death’s door again and again. Head of the most vicious war clan in the Plains, and he never got separated from a dying woman tied to a bed. Yet our mom couldn’t keep track of two kids and their Dad. Fuck that, Charlie.’

‘Danny-’

‘No. You know I’m right. She left because we - because I - was a wheezing burden and she wanted shot of us. Dad might have got himself killed dragging us out here, but at least he didn’t run away.’

Lot leaned over and grabbed the bottle from him. ‘She left me too, little brother, and I’m awesome.’

It surprised a laugh out of him. Pushing himself up he crawled onto the cot with her, leaning against her side. Old habit - poked by his comment - had her counting his breathing. He’d not had an attack in years, but she still woke up sometimes listening for the cough. Did their mom? The jab of that old resentment dragged the truth out of her. 

‘I asked one of the guards on the way out of camp,’ she said. The words felt heavy like stones on her tongue. ‘Neville? Apparently she’s no-one the likes of me need concern myself with. She’s Monroe’s scientific advisor, and a good friend of the guy’s mom.’

‘Since?’ Danny asked. When Lot didn’t answer, he sat up and glared at her. ‘Charlie…Since?’

Her shoulders hitched. ‘A decade or so, he thought.’

He blinked, grief raw and wet in his face. Then he plastered it over with a shrug and a smirk. ‘Screw her then. We don’t need her. We never did. I’m going to get more booze. Want any.’

‘Stay in camp,’ she said.

‘I’m not six anymore,’ he told. ‘You don’t have to hold my hand all my life. You already did a better job than she did.’

He batted the tent flap out of the way and stalked out into the night. Left alone with the bottle, Lot lay down and tried to forget what it had felt like to be Charlie. Not because she minded - much - who she was, but because poor stupid Charlie had been so fucking happy to see her mom. It made Lot feel bad for the kid she’d been.


	8. Sacred stars won't be guiding you

 

The fancy tent stayed at Sylvania Estate with the bulk of the militia force -  a feint at keeping the Patriots off their tails. For a while, anyhow. Of course, based on what Lot picked out of Miles’ head, any one of the mercs or militia could be Patriot sleepers. It made the back of Lot’s brain itch with paranoia to think about  that  too much. Of course, it also made her brain itch not to be riding herd on her angry, edgy kid brother as he picked fights and lost money.

So she ran her people ragged, chasing tumbleweeds and ghosts through the plains, and harried the militia soldiers every time they slacked. If it had been her, she’d have run off in the night. Instead eight of Duncan’s boys petitioned to throw their lot in with her.

Pissed Scanlon off when she said yes, but there was no reason  not  to.

Out on patrol, Lot loped along the dry bed of an old creek. The tide mark on the sides were higher than her head, but the water had shrunk to a muddy trickle that crawled and stank. Flies hung in fat, lazy swarms in the air.

Lot mapped out territories in her head, trying to work out who depended on this water. Desperation had a way of undermining any alliances, and Monroe would be a nice prize. He had a lot of enemies with deep pockets. He had a lot of enemies with empty pockets too, but no one cared about them.

The sound of hooves on hard earth made her pause. She sidled to the side of the bank and scrambled up, digging the toes of her boots into the hard cracks. The long scrub hid her from view as she crawled on her belly towards the noise. 

Three slope-rumped Plains ponies were ground-tethered in the clearing. The dusty riders squatted in a circle, spitting sand off their lips and trading bites of blackened jerky. 

‘Saw Lot and Scanlon riding west,’ the woman of the trip said. She picked a bit of meat out of her teeth with her thumbnail. ‘Some new faces with them.’

‘Anyone you knew?’ Garrett asked.

‘Didn’t see Matheson,’ the woman said. She looked at the one man who’d not spoken yet, grizzled and one-eyed. ‘You?’

He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t get close enough,’ he said. Scratching under his armpit, he snorted, ‘Lot’s got her people running around like ants since the attack.’

Garrett spat. ‘Should have recruited her. Girl’s sharp and angry, and only a bit crazy. Not like-’

He stopped and looked around, eyes squinting in a web of dust-set wrinkles. In the grass, Lot ducked her face down, breathing against her arm and shuttering her eyes with dipped lashes to stop the wet gleam giving her away. Her hand ached to reach for her sword, but she made herself wait.

‘Hear that?’ Garrett asked.

The other two glanced around, getting back to their feet and dusting themselves off. Just as Lot was about to give in and go for her sword, a scrawny roadrunner dashed out of the bushes. Garrett’s hand snapped down to his hip, pulling his knife, and he pinned the bird to the ground. It thrashed for a second, wings spraying blood and dirt everywhere.

‘Keep an eye on Scanlon and Lot,’ Garrett said, walking over and wrenching his knife out of the ground. He wiped it on his thigh. ‘I’m going back to Sylvania. If you see anything out of order, send word.’

He picked the still twitching bird up by the neck and hung it off his belt. ‘Refresh the tree,’ he said, voice gone formal.

They rhymed it off back to him. ‘Refresh the tree.’

Lot waited until they were gone and then rolled to her feet. Nervous sweat soaked her, plastering her shirt to her breasts and running down her back. Her hand clenched on her sword, knuckles creaking under blanched skin. ‘Son of a bitch,’ she muttered. She’d always  liked  Garrett.

She licked salt off her top lip and turned to head back to camp. It wasn’t a noise that gave her pause, it was nothing she could put her finger on. Maybe it was just paranoia, and this once it was right. Lot turned just in time to see the sword swing at her. She cursed and dropped, the tip of the blade flicking down her cheek. It skimmed through her lashes, close enough to her eye she was scared to blink, and down her cheek. 

‘It’s nothing personal,’ the one-eyed man said, flicking his sword into his other hand and pulling a gun. ‘Just my duty.’

Lot grabbed a rock and threw it at his face. He got his arm up, batting it out of the way. That was enough time for Lot to pull the knife out of her boot and drive it into his thigh. A vicious twist opened the wound and then she used the knife as a handle to haul her to her feet.

She’d learned a long time that her size meant she was never going to be the best fighter out there. There were too many fighters who could just muscle through her technique. So she’d always had to depend on being the most vicious. Yanking the knife out hard she swung it, slicing it up at his face. When he flinched backwards, Lot rammed her knee up into his groin and hammered a quick, mean punch into his gut.

While the man staggered, she dodged backwards and drew her sword.

‘Yeah? Well, that was personal,’ she said.

The fight was short and vicious, but in the end all Lot had to do was keep moving while he bled out. She’d been lucky he’d wanted the kill to himself, if he’d called the others back she could have been in trouble. He chased her, she harried him with nicks and pricks and stayed, mostly, out of reach.

The one eyed man staggered, his arm wobbling as he struggled to keep his sword arm up. Lot hung back, nursing the cut across her ribs he’d got lucky with. His legs gave and he went down hard, staring up at her with a glazed despair.

‘I’ve a woman, near the Springs,’ he wheezed. One hand fumbled at throat, tugging at a strand of twine. ‘Tell her...’

‘I don’t care.’ Lot said, putting her sword through his throat. He coughed out his life on bright red bubbles of blood. Once he was done, she kicked him over on his back and frisked him down. There was a cheap ring on the loop of twine around his neck and a sheaf of paper scraps scrawled with symbols that she didn’t recognise. Lot took both, folding the letters tight and stuffing them into the back pocket of her jeans.

The dead man’s pony gave her a white-edged, suspicious look when she found it, dry weeds hanging out of the corner of its mouth. It snorted and stamped its forehoof, chipping a divot of dirt out of the ground. 

Lot made a soothing sound and fished a handful of dried apple out of her pocket, bribing it into dropping its guard. Grabbing the saddle pad and the horse’s shoulder, she pulled herself up and swung her leg over its withers.

It suddenly remembered that it didn’t like her, tossing its head and cow-kicking nervously. Lot hung on grimly. She  could  ride. It had been one of those skills Andover didn’t give you a choice about picking up. She just didn’t  like  riding. The leather reins dug into her fingers as she wrestled the horse’s head down, bullying it turning its head back toward camp.

 

Monroe unfolded the papers, squinting in the dim light as he read. His face was unreadable as he looked them over, the flicker of his eyes the only movement. Miles read over his shoulder, mouth twisting sourly. In service of them keeping a low profile, both men had been stripped of their uniform and left in jeans and a shirt. Lot paused in her rough wash-up, damp flannel between her fingers, as an image popped into her head.

Those hands - and Monroe’s hands had made a few visits to her fantasies lately - slowly unbuttoning his shirt and dropping to the belt at his waist…

‘ Lot,’ Monroe said sharply. She abruptly registered that he’d said her name before. 

She cleared her suddenly dry throat and scrubbed her cheek with the cloth. It stung more than getting the cut had. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s the come-down. What?’

His eyebrow lifted, but he let it pass. ‘I said, are any of your men fluent in Arabic?’

She wrung the cloth out, twisting a drip of bloody water  out between her fingers, as she thought. ‘Don’t know, I’d have to ask around. Is that what it is?’

He handed the papers to Miles. ‘No,’ he said dryly. ‘I was just interested in the multi-lingual capabilities of your fighters. Considering half of you barely speak English, I was hoping it was a second language for you.’

Lot ran the cool flannel around the back of her neck. ‘Yeah, keep mouthing off. Everyone’s gonna be real eager to fight for you if the Patriots find us.’

He glanced up. ‘I thought you fought for money, not love.’

‘We do,’ Lot said. ‘I’m talking about hate.’

A faint smile creased the corner of Monroe’s mouth. ‘Good. I trust that more than love anyhow.’ His attention focused over Lot’s shoulder, and - for himself, not her - he muttered. ‘Case in point.’

Lot turned as Rachel stalked into the tent, blonde hair tied back and eyes snapping. It still hurt, like a fish hook rammed right under her ribs. 

Not even looking at Lot, Rachel stalked over to the desk and jabbed a finger at Monroe. ‘We have information on the Patriots, and I hear about it from one of your paid for killers? That’s not our arrangement, Bass.

There were two people in camp that called Monroe by his nickname. Both of them were Mathesons. With Miles it was reluctant, the memory of friendship. Rachel used it like a whip.

Lot hooked a chair with her foot and sat down, swinging her leg up over the arm. She picked at her nails, scraping out the rime of blood, while she listened in to the argument. To be honest, she wasn’t sure if she was collecting information or just picking at old scars.

Snatching the letters out of Miles’ hand, Rachel flicked through the pages. She stopped at one of the blood-stained pages, peeling the sticky paper apart with a fastidious touch. 

‘Here,’ she said. ‘There’s a name I recognise. Flagg. He was in charge of the project. I think, I’m  sure,  he’s the one that...’

Monroe held up his hand to quiet her. ‘Enough, Rachel.’ He tilted his head toward Lot. ‘Let’s keep our private business private, hmm?’

Jerking around, Rachel stared at Lot for a second. It visibly annoyed her to have to admit he was right. She twisted her mouth together and walked away from the desk, thumping her fist restlessly against her thigh. Miles started after her and stopped, hand dropping helplessly to his side.

‘Was there anything else?’ Monroe asked, giving Lot an expectant look.

She shrugged and pushed herself to her feet. ‘Enjoy tonight. We’re going to push hard tomorrow, I want to cross the neighbouring territories quickly.’

‘Something we should be concerned about?’ Monroe asked.

‘That’s what you pay me for,’ she shrugged, ducking out of the tent and walking away.

 

Scanlon sat in front of the fire, legs folded at the ankles and elbows braced on his knees. He shovelled the watery stew into him, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and gesturing with his spoon. It made Lot twitch. Andover’s boys and girls had good manners, he’d insisted on it. 

‘Best bet is to veer toward the Lion’s boundary,’ he said, pointing. ‘Most keep clear of it, and if we need to run for it the man’s got a weak spot.’

Lot curled her lip. ‘We aren’t shaking my brother’s ass for passage,’ she said. ‘You wanna rent your hole out, feel free. Long as the Lion ain’t heard about the clap.’

He threw a clod of sod at her, growling ‘Fuck sake, will you drop that? Don’t want people think you’re serious. Especially not her...’

Expecting to see Gwennie - whose bright red hair and big tits always had people sniffing after her - Lot looked around. She nearly choked on her stew when she saw Rachel walking towards the fire. 

‘If you wanna stick it in snowmen you should head north,’ she muttered.

He spat in his hand and slicked his hair back. ‘Fuck you, Lot,’ he said. ‘She’s gorgeous, and if what I heard about her is true...she’s up for it.’

‘What’d you hear?’ Lot asked.

Scanlon scraped up the dregs of his stew up, sucking it off his fingers, and wiped his hand on the grass. ‘Heard her, Monroe  and  Matheson had a thing back in the day. That’s why Monroe had stolen his general’s wife.’

‘Sister-in-law,’ Lot said. 

‘What?’

‘Sister-in-law,’ Lot repeated. ‘She was married to Miles’ brother, not Miles.’

‘Yeah? What happened to him?’

Lot finished her stew and set the bowl down at her feet. She watched Rachel sit down to Miles, not quite touching. 

‘I heard he died,’ she said. ‘Dicks that go there don’t have much luck.’

He frowned. Luck mattered on the Plains. Life could turn bad so quick, it had to. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘Still. You know how much tail Monroe could get? Has to be something there to keep him sniffing round, yeah?’

Lot rolled her eyes and got up, grabbing her bowl. ‘Knock yourself out,’ she said.

A mixture of anger, grief and stale adrenaline bubbled in her chest as she headed back to her bedroll, scouring the bowl out and shoving it in her pack. Danny was off somewhere, getting into more trouble, and why the fuck not?

Sometimes you just needed to scratch your itch.


	9. Spell gonna be broken, with a potion or a priest

The yellowed scraps of paper lay on Monroe's makeshift desk, dragging his attention back every time he tried to focus on something else. He picked at the cracked bits of sealing wax, rolling the crayon red bits between his fingers, and pored over the scrawled lettering for words he understood. Place names, his name, a few words here and there before his rudimentary Arabic gave up the ghost. He'd never been fluent - just learning enough to flirt and give orders - and he'd forgotten half of it in the last 15 years. 

These days his French was better, from having to dance through negotiations with Giroux up in Montreal. Bastard, but he'd give the Patriots a mouthful to chew on if they tried to claim back land lost to Canada.

Shoving the letters away - determined to give over obsessing until he had something to obsess about - Monroe slouched down in the canvas chair and rubbed his hand over his mouth. 15 years, his friendship with Miles and enough blood to make drinking himself to sleep a kindness - and the Patriots thought they could just ride in and take it all away.

Well, fuck them. God knows, Monroe had never  wanted  it - that had been Miles, empire building to give Rachel somewhere nice to sit when he finally found her - but he'd be damned if he was going to just bend over and let them take it. They could pay in the same coin he had. Blood and peace of mind.

He reached for the whiskey, twisting the cap off and not even bothering with a glass. It was smooth and peaty, pre-Blackout aged. He tossed it back like it was rotgut brewed in a bathtub.

The rustle of canvas at the tent flap caught his attention between gulps. Habit moved his hand to the gun resting on the desk, fingers folding over the pearl handle.

Lot ducked through and glanced at him, then the gun. She crooked dark blonde brows towards her hairline.

‘If you are expecting Miles, he’s busy with Rachel,’ she said.

Monroe clenched his jaw against the sour twist of anger that wrenched through him. His fingers flexed around the gun and he felt his jaw pull tight. There were topics that were off-limits, that no-one brought up even in passing around him. 

‘What I expect is to be obeyed,’ he said, anger dragging his voice low and rough in his throat. Just in case temptation outweighed good sense, he put the gun down. ‘I told you to get out.’

She shrugged, wriggling out of her battered old jacket as she did so. The worn hem of her t-shirt rode up, flashing a toned slice of bare stomach. Monroe bit the inside of his cheek and looked away, caught off guard by the quick tug of awareness between his legs. He had a type- well-paid, compliant brunettes, the occasional willing-to-bruise blonde - and this dusty, angry kid wasn’t it. Even if she did have a tight ass, and a mouth he could appreciate if she’d shut it for a minute.

‘That was hours ago,’ she said, putting a shrug into her voice.

When he looked back she’d dumped her jacket over a stool and was helping herself to a glass of whiskey. He grabbed her wrist, digging his fingers in until he knew it hurt. Then he squeezed harder, until a flinch of pain in those big, blue eyes acknowledged he’d hurt her.

She had ridiculous eyes. A killer shouldn’t have eyes like that.

‘Perhaps I have not been clear,’ he said coldly, yanking her arm until she was leaning awkwardly over the folding table. The whiskey spilled and long blonde hair - darker than his bruisable blonde, darker than Rachel’s - trailed in the puddle. He tilted his head down so he was invading her space, the heat of her skin on his lips. ‘You are a disposable asset, Lot. A grubby little spanner to use for a particular task and then discard. Not an ally, not a partner, and  certainly not a drinking companion. Understand.’

She looked up at him with those eyes and wrinkled her nose, ‘So you  don’t  want to fuck?’

It was an insane proposition, crude and simplistic as the woman that mouthed it, and it was like a switch had been thrown in Monroe’s brain. He grabbed the nape of her neck, fine strands of hair tangling around his fingers, and dragged her into a rough, scraping kiss.

She tasted clean and sweet, her mouth meeting his with sharp, angry hunger. Callused fingers cupped his jaw, pulling him closer. He bit her lower lip, sinking his teeth into the tender curve, and tasted the salty tang of blood. 

He waited for the slap, the cowed whimper, the  play.  Instead she kissed him harder, breath ragged where it mixed with his. Her fingers twisted in his hair, tugging at his scalp, and he shoved her away roughly. She rocked back a step, looking softer than he’d seen her, and touched her fingers to her bloody lower lip.

‘ Was  that a no?’ she asked breathing hard enough he couldn’t stop thinking about the size and shape of her breasts under that t-shirt. Her tongue dabbed out to lick the blood away and he felt a crazy twist of resentment - he’d drawn it, it was his blood. ‘Because I hope to fuck you’re clearer in a fight.’

‘Always got to have a smart mouth,’ Monroe said, struggling to keep his voice steady. He stalked around the desk, unhooking his sword and laying it over the desk with the careful habit of a lot of years. A finger under her chin tipped her head back. This close it was impossible to ignore how tiny she was under the attitude. ‘Maybe I should give you something better to do with it than sound of? Get on your knees.’

She hooked her fingers into the top of his jeans, knuckles brushing against his stomach and making his muscles clench, and stepped closer. He ran his hands through her hair gathering the heavy mass back from her face.

‘It’s cute you think that’s how this is gonna go,’ she said, hooking a foot behind him and shoving. They hit the ground in a tangle of legs and hair. Paranoia cut through Monroe’s guts like a knife, but her mouth was on his throat and her hand slid down between his thighs to squeeze the hard rise of his cock. ‘Not in the mood to close my eyes and think of the Republic, General.’

She sat back, the firm curve of her ass settling against his groin, and pulled her t-shirt over her head. Sprawled on his back under her Monroe’s mouth went dry and all the blood in him headed for his cock. Her body was long and lean, but soft in ways he hadn’t expected. Puppy fat lingered in the slight curve of her belly, the swell of her hips. Her breasts, as she twisted her arms around in that boneless female squirm to undo her bra, were hand sized and pert, with hard, dusty pink nipples.

He ran his hands up the taut line of her thighs, feeling the long lean muscle under them. There was a scar on her ribs, a pink smear stark against her tanned skin. 

‘So what are you in the mood for?’

She rolled her hips against him and he clenched his jaw, fingers digging into her thighs, as the sweet pain hit his cock and spread out. ‘Getting off,’ she said. ‘You using those pretty fucking hands to make it happen?’

He raised his eyebrows at her.  Miles had pretty hands, long musician’s fingers and relaxed elegance. No one had ever singled his out before. Lot shrugged her shoulder, making her breasts bounce distractingly.

‘I like your hands,’ she said. Getting up on her knees she unfastened her jeans and shoved them down to her thighs. The neat patch of dark gold curls between her legs was already wet, the taut skin of her inner thighs glistening. She grabbed his hand and moved it there, rubbing against his fingers. ‘See? Nothing wrong with those hands.’

He curled his fingers, sliding two inside her. She squirmed, slick, wet flesh tightening around him, and rocked her hips against him. The swipe of his thumb over the tight nub of her clit made her gasp, long muscles in her thigh twitching in reaction. 

Leaning forwards, back arched and long as a cat, she kissed him against. Her tongue flicked against his lips as his fingers thrust into her. He slid his free hand up over her backside, fingers bumping from denim to a tight, honey warm curve, and up her back. The shiny texture of old scars made him hesitate, fingers settling in the dip at the bottom of her spine.

Tilting his head back, breaking the seal of their lips, he asked, ‘Touch or not?’

‘Hmmm?’ Without his mouth to keep her occupied, Lot bit-kissed his jaw and down the tender line of his throat to collarbones. The tickle of her breath against the thin skin there made his breath hitch, his balls tight and aching as she scraped her teeth along the flare of bone. 

‘Your back,’ he said, rubbing his thumb across the thready scar-ends. ‘Touch it or...’

She shrugged, he felt the muscles shift under her skin. ‘Oh, yeah, up to you. I can’t really feel much there.’ Sharp teeth bit down on his collarbone, making him swear, and her slick, wet pussy squirmed against his palm. ‘ There,  on the other hand...’

He snorted a laugh into her hair and pushed his fingers deeper, grinding the heel of her hand against her clit. Her whole body tensed, a long line of tension from his hand to her mouth muttering soft swear words against his throat. So he did it again and she came, wet and willing around his fingers and biting her lips to be quiet.

‘See, General,’ she panted once she’d stopped shuddering. Propping herself up, elbow braced on his chest, she smirked. ‘If you were that sweet all the time, maybe so many people wouldn’t want you dead.’

He snorted. ‘I intend to see Flagg and his Patriots on their knees,’ he said. ‘I don’t intend for them to enjoy getting there.’

She laughed and pushed herself back up on her knees, looking him over from head to the aching erection under his jeans. A wicked grin curved her mouth and rubbed her thumb over his zipper, making him twitch and clench his thigh muscles. 

‘If I was a cruel woman, General Monroe,’ she said, voice trailing off into a snigger as he growled at her. Reaching up she pulled her sweat damp hair back from her face, breasts riding high on her ribcage and begging for his mouth on them. ‘Lucky for you, I’m only cruel if I’m being paid to be. Or you ask nice. Or I’m feeling pissy...’

Monroe sat up, hand in the small of her back stopping her from squirming away, and kissed her breast. She had freckles in her cleavage, scattered across the soft curve of flesh that saw the sun the most.  He played join-the-dots with his tongue, ending up at the tender bud of her nipple. Lot flinched and buried her fingers in his hair, as he scraped his teeth over the tender flesh.

‘Fuck me,’ he ordered, lips sliding over the sweetness of her. ‘Nice enough?’

She twisted her hand in his hair, pulling his head back until he could feel the tendons in his neck tighten. ‘Say please.’

He slid his hand down into her jeans, cupping her ass in his palm and squeezing. ‘No.’

Her mouth pursed into a pout. It wasn’t an expression he’d expected to see on calm killer Lot’s face, and he had to bit the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. ‘You are lucky you’re pretty,’ she grumbled. 

‘Pretty?’

She shoved him back down onto the floor and shoved his shirt up, fingers sliding appreciatively over his stomach muscles. ‘You’re pretty as fuck. Don’t pretend you don’t know it.’

It wasn’t how anyone talked to him - ever - and it startled a laugh out of him, a real, belly-deep chuckle of humour. Lot paused, tilting her head to the side. He used the hand on her ass to tug her closer.

‘What?’ he said. ‘Contrary to popular opinion, birds don’t fall from the sky when I laugh.’

She shook her head, hair catching on sweaty shoulders, and shifted back. Long, clever fingers tugged at his trousers, shucking them down to his thighs with a tug. His cock was so hard it ached, sticky with pre-come. 

‘Not that,’ she said. ‘You just have a nice smile, and I didn’t expect you to. That’s all.’

Monroe frowned briefly, not entirely sure how he should feel about that. Then Lot leaned down and licked the taut underside of his cock, the wet swipe of heat making him arch up off the ground with a choked noise. His fingers scraped the ground and he clenched his jaw, sweating through the need to come as she wrapped that damn mouth around him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d  wanted  this much.

After a long, tortuous moment, Lot lifted her head from his spit-slick cock and crawled up his body. He  dragged her down on top of him, cock trapped against the soft flesh of her stomach, and kissed her thoroughly. His hand curled around the back of her neck, thumb stroking the tender skin behind her ear. 

After a second, she nipped his lower lip and leaned back. ‘You ain’t in charge, remember?’

He gave her a look. Lot tilted the corner of her mouth and re-stated. ‘Of this, you ain’t in charge of this.’

Reaching down she wrapped her fingers around his cock and guided it inside her, body flexing wet and tight around him. Her breath caught with a ragged hitch and she folded her bruised lower lip between her teeth. Monroe ran his hands up her thighs, feeling the muscles flexing under his thumbs, to where she was pressed against him. His thumbs lay along the crease of her thigh, feeling the hard throb of her pulse.

‘Why?’ he asked.

Lot tightened around him, like a wet velvet glove squeezing his cock. ‘Now?’

He tightened his grip, holding her still. ‘Now.’

‘Because I wanted to,’ she said. ‘Because you and your stupid hands been keeping me up at night. Because I killed someone today and they didn’t kill me.’

She paused and Monroe’s chest tightened, cramping like he’d taken a breath of cold air. ‘And because people pissed me off, and this would piss  them  off if they knew about it.’

‘So someone new is going to try to kill me?’ he asked.

The corner of Lot’s mouth tucked in a sly smile. ‘At this point, are you even gonna notice one more?’ 

Monroe turned over the options coldly in his eyes, dismissing them as either not a threat or easily removed. He didn’t trust any of them anyhow, and this was…his. Not a second-hand cause inherited from Miles, not some girl looking over his shoulder for his brother as they banged, or woman with an eye for advancement if she sucked off the President. It was fucked up and messy, but then he wasn’t exactly a picture of functionality anyhow.

‘Hope it’s not someone you’re that fond of, then,’ he said, shifting his hands to grip her ass and pull her down. She made an approving sound and rocked her hips hard against him, hipbones clashing and sweaty skin rubbing until they found the right rhythm. ‘It’d be awkward killing you now.’

She bent down and brushed a slanting, elusive kiss over his mouth, breath panting against his cheek. ‘Don’t worry, I ain’t sentimental, General Monroe.’

About ‘them’, whoever they were, or him? He supposed it didn’t matter. She was tight and wet around his cock as she moved over him, and for once Lot’s smart mouth didn’t have anything clever to say. 

He felt the heavy tug of warning in his balls, and he was going to pull out. Except he could feel the fluttery contractions of Lot’s orgasm around his cock, and her head was thrown back to expose the smooth, taut line of her throat. Her hips rocked hard against his, his cock wet and slick as she rode it. She was so close and all he had to do was slide a finger between the wet folds of her pussy, rubbing the tender rub with a callused fingertip.

Her climax folded her in two like a punch, sprawled out on top of him as she chewed her scream mutely against his shoulder. The cramp of her body around his wrung him out, and he spilled himself inside her instead of on her stomach.

They lay on the floor, limbs tangled together, until their hearts stopped racing. It was Lot who moved first, swearing ‘shit’ and rolling off him. His cock slid out of her, leaving come wet and sticky on both of them.

‘Sorry,’ he panted out, shoving a hand through his hair. He was. He wasn’t. Fuck it. He dropped his head back into the dirt and knuckled sweat out of his eyes, staring at the tent roof.

‘It happens,’ Lot said. ‘Don’t worry. If anything happens I’ll take care of it.’

Of course she would. He folded his arm over his eyes, still breathing hard. Who’d want to be lumbered with the bastard child of a dethroned war lord.

A fist punched his shoulder. ‘Anyhow, thanks. I needed that.’

The warmth at his side was suddenly gone and he heard the jingle of her belt. Moving his arm he watched her hop back into her jeans, wriggling them up over sex-sticky thighs.

‘That’s it?’ he asked. ‘You just get your way and run?’

She buttoned her jeans and bent down to scoop her shirt up off the ground. ‘Well, yeah, that did the job. I feel better now and I need to grab some sleep before my turn on watch.’

He shoved his cock back in his pants and sat up, hooking his arm around his knee. The vague, heavy misery that followed on the heels of his orgasm, was being replaced by an odd feeling of surreal amusement as he watched her squirm back into her t-shirt.

At least he’d given his one night stands a kiss and a lie to make it all look better.

‘Lot,’ he said. She ‘huh’d’ him absently as she tied her hair back. ‘You don’t give the General of the Monroe Republic the bum’s rush in his own tent.’

She shrugged and flipped the tail of hair over her shoulder. ‘I’m not, I just got what I wanted, General. Didn’t you?’

Monroe pushed himself to his feet, prickly pride making him deny his once-broken knee was creaking in protest. ‘I think at this point you can call me Bass.’

Her nose wrinkled dubiously. ‘Seems a bit familiar doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Have a good night, sir.’

Then she was gone, tent flap swaying behind her. Monroe stared after her for a second and then snorted, shaking his head in bafflement. 

It had stopped him thinking about the Patriots, and Miles, he supposed. A yawn caught him off-guard, popping his jaw and making his eyes water. He grabbed his sword and collapsed onto the tent’s narrow cot, tucking his arm under his head as a pillow. Maybe he’d actually get some sleep tonight after all. 


	10. When you're cursed you're always hoping

A line of skinny, dust covered cows - slab-sided and hook-horned - were making their way along the horizon. Lot hooked her knee up around the saddle horn and slouched comfortably, eyes tracking the scrubby hills for the cow-herder. Something reflective caught the light, winking down the hill at her, and a skinny, dust covered youth resolved out of the dust and straw.

Lot raised her hand in acknowledgement. The youth stared down at her for a second, hand cocked over his eyes. 

‘Think he’d sell us a leg?’ Danny said, the awkward joke breaking the rare two-day silence. He, reined his sweat-coated pony in next to her. He scratched his head, sweat-matted hair standing up in elf-locks over his ears. ‘I could chew it off.’

‘Quit whining, we've been leaner,' Lot said. Giving in, she licked her fingers and reached over to spackle his hair flat.

'Jesus, sis,' he grumbled, ducking out from under her hand. 'I'm not 12.’

'Then brush your hair,' Lot told him. 'You look like a sheep.'

He snorted. 'You tell  him  that?'

'I didn't have to shave  his  head last summer,' Lot said. She rested her elbow on her knew and glanced sidelong at her brother. 'It was just an itch.’

Danny shrugged, self-consciously flattening his hair down behind his ears with both hands. 'Ain't judging, Charlie. Just...you gotta think about me when you do these things.'

She dragged her attention away from the herd and stared at him. 'I do?'

'Shit, yeah,' Danny said, screwing up his face. 'If he hurts you, I'm gonna have to try and kill the fucking Scourge of Scranton. That's gonna be fun.'

'Idiot,' Lot reached over and gave him a shove, making him wobble dramatically in his saddle. 'Besides, it was a one off.'

Danny straightened up in the saddle and nodded sagely. 'Not good, eh?'

'Shut up.'

'Naw, c'mon, sis,' he said. 'I listen to you about fighting and tactics, but now you're in my wheelhouse.'

'Bad sex?'

'You can't get a perfect dismount every time,' Danny shrugged. 'And so you admit it wasn't great. If it just happened too quick, I think more people should take that as a compliment.'

Lot turned her horse’s head back towards the main party and gave it a kick. It huffed under her, sides pressing against her calves, and stirred itself into a heat-weary amble. Hooves scuffed through the dust, turning its pale legs beige. Danny kicked his mount into a jog to catch up, falling in next to her. Still talking.

‘...did he do any tricks?’

Lot gave him a baffled look. ‘Like  what?  Does he seem like the type to balance something on his nose?’

Broad shoulders rolled in a shrug. ‘Hey, people used to do all sorts of weird sex shit before the blackout. I just thought he might, you know, have  techniques.’

Lot shook her head and glanced at him through her hair. ‘Feeling better, then?’

The wicked humour slid from his face, leaving it solemn for a second. His mouth twitched and he rubbed his hand over his face. ‘I wasn’t mad at you.’

‘I know.’

‘I was...’ he trailed off, letting another shrug stand in for words. ‘Then I figured, nothing’s really changed has it?’ He tilted his head back, sun pinking his face as he talked. ‘We thought our mom was dead; it turns out she’s just dead to us. What’s the difference?’

He paused, humour lighting up his face again. It might have been a bit forced, but Lot wasn’t going to pick at that. ‘Other than you get to sleep with her ex.’

Lot gave him the finger.

‘Oh, is that what his dick’s like?’ Danny crowed. ‘Does he have a special name for it? Hey, Charlie, does he call it the little general?’

‘Nobody calls their cock ‘little’ anything,’ Lot said, aiming a kick at him and letting him dodge. ‘And if you keep running your mouth,  I’ll  have to kill the Scourge of Scranton to stop him cutting your tongue out.’

‘I’d screw him first,’ Danny said. ‘Tire him out. I mean, he’s pretty old. He probably naps a  lot. A lot, Lot. Get it?’

‘That’s not a pun.’

‘Is.’

‘No.’

‘Is.’

‘ I’m  gonna cut your tongue out.’

Danny opened his mouth to say something and stopped. One hand grabbed his chest and he coughed, breath gargling like sand in his lungs. For a second, Lot scoffed in her head - sure he was just trying to scare her. It had been years since he’d had an attack. Then he doubled over, clutching at the horse’s mane for balance, and his breath couldn’t decide if it wanted to whoop or whistle. His eyes were huge and frightened, and there was blood on his lips.

‘Danny!’ she said, reaching over to grab him before he could slide out of the saddle. It wasn’t a joke this time, she felt the full weight of him strain against her arm before she could wrench him upright again. ‘What-’

His horse was already fidgety, its ears twitching anxiously as it stamped its hooves. Another coughing fit hit Danny, chest heaving as he strained to get in breath, and it had hit its limit. With a snort it took off, galloping back to the party with Danny listing dangerously in the saddle. 

Shit. Lot hammered her heels into her horse’s side, making it snort. It reared in place, shaking its head, and then took off after Danny like it was shot from a sling.


	11. that a prophet would be grieved

It was a buzz in Lot’s ear at first, a mosquito whine that was hardly important with her brother maybe dying in front of her. Then it got louder, and louder. A sudden wind kicked up the dust around her, dry sand catching in her nose and her lips. Her hair whipped around her face, knots and tangles dragging over her eyes.

Something too-big and too-fast roared overhead, black and buzzing like a horsefly from hell. Its passage pushed down on Lot like a hand, throwing her off balance, and the noise it made Danny’s horse shriek and rear. Her brother went flying, his lanky body terrifyingly limp as he slammed into the ground, and the horse took off towards the horizon.

Plane.

Lot didn’t  remember planes - the thought conjured up vague, primary coloured memories of smiling crayon drawings and her mom (back when it was ok, back when ‘mom’ wasn’t a knot of anger and pain lodged in her throat) making a spoon fly for Danny - but she’d heard people talk about them. It couldn’t be anything  else could it? She just didn’t how it could  be  at all.

The plane whined venomously across the desert towards the caravan. Lot could see people pausing, lifting hands to shade their eyes and squint into the sun. Her brain staggered frantically between terror for her brother that her mother had given her and the cold tactical distance Andover had beaten into her. 

Her brother won. Danny always won.

She wrenched her horse to a skidding halt next to Danny’s sprawled body, its haunches tucking under it as it snorted and fought her. Sliding out of the saddle, she dropped to her knees next to him and…

He wasn’t moving. Lot hesitated, her scarred, practical hands hovering over his shoulders. The air tasted like fear and metal on her tongue. Sometimes, she’d used to wonder what it would be like to not  always  hear ‘don’t let go of Danny’s hand’ before she did anything. Never  wanted  it, just...wondered. 

Based on this floating second of uncertainty, it fucking sucked.

‘Danny,’ she said, grabbing his shoulders and shoving him over onto his back. His head lolled, lips tinted nearly the same colour as the goose-egg lump on his forehead. Shit. Shit. Lot hit his chest with both hands, jolting him with the impact. 

She wasn’t sure if she was trying to make him breath or if she was just angry at him.

The second time she hit him, the dull thud of flesh and bone was drowned under the squealing chatter of automatic firing. Lot glanced up frantically, feeling the tug of responsibility to her people. When she looked back down, Danny had opened his eyes and was wiping froth off his mouth with the back of his hands.

He looked too pink, pale skin flushed up to his hairline, but he was breathing.

‘Shit,’ he choked out. She grabbed his arm and hauled him up. He coughed - the wet, sticky sound she remembered - and spat phlegm into the dirt. Lot whacked his back, making him grunt, but he shoved her away. ‘Go.’

‘Danny.’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, then grimaced and hunched over. ‘My stomach hurts and my lungs are sticky, but I’m fine. Go and get our people out. We got a rep, Lot.’

She hugged him, quick and hard enough to bruise, then scrambled back into the saddle. It balked at heading towards the smoke and screaming ahead, but her heels in its ribs got it moving. 

The plane had cut a swathe through the middle of the caravan, stitching holes in wood, flesh and wheels. A caravan lay burning on the ground, cut in half, while the horse in the traces screamed and tried to stand on two shattered legs.

Lot dismounted and pulled her gun, putting the poor thing out of its misery on her way by. It slumped down onto the bloody earth. She counted four dead that she could see - one of them her’s - and about a dozen injured in various stages of shocky and bloody. Scanlon was sitting on the ground, shocked and shaking, with a wad of silk pressed to his ribs.

‘You dying?’ Lot asked, stopping in front of him.

He peeled the silk off his ribs, went paler than he already was, but shook his head. ‘Naw.’

‘Then get off your ass,’ she snapped. ‘That thing’s turning.’

Horror turned Scanlon’s face slack, like clay on his bones. ‘You can’t know that.’

‘The fuck I can’t,’ Lot said. ‘What d’ya think, it was just buzzing us for shits? It’s gonna come back, so get up and do your fucking job.’

She left him staggering to his feet and broke into a jog as she headed for the shouting. Monroe was on his feet, blood a slick mask down one side of his face, yelling orders and threats in equal measure. He got men on their feet - fear or loyalty or both - and then Miles got them moving in the right direction.

Lot loped up to them. ‘What the fuck was that?’ she demanded.

Monroe turned on her. ‘Where the fuck were you?’ he snarled. ‘I thought you were meant to be the best, Lot. Worth the money.’

‘Against mad fuckers with swords and rocks in their head,’ Lot said. She jabbed her finger skyward. ‘That was...what am I gonna do to that? Moon it?’

Miles laughed. There was no humour in it, but he did. ‘Hell, be as much use as anything else we’ve done.’

Plans and tactics rolled into Lot’s head, jostling for space around the big, fat do-I-wanna-know. Since she wasn’t going to be able to do anything else until she knew…

‘That was a plane, right?’ she said, voice oddly small. 

Monroe cracked his neck. ‘Helicopter,’ he said. ‘Fucking Patriots have power, I’ve got savages with pointy sticks. If I had  one  of those, I’d be ruling the whole damn continent. I’d be a fucking god.’

His anger was almost visible, leeching out of his skin like a heat shimmer.

‘Yeah, well, you don’t and you ain’t,’ Lot said. He gave her a bleak, furious look, but she ignored him. Without the great big stumbling block taking up space in her head, her thoughts were slotting together again. She squinted along the path of destruction, eyes picking out the cloud of disturbed dust heading back their way. ‘There’s a town, two miles east. We need to split up, get there. Once we have cover it - they - lose the advantage. We can regroup.’

Miles and Bass traded a look. Whatever it was that twisted uneasily between them, it was gone as a whole conversation got shorthanded in the tilt of a mouth and the tilt of a head.

‘Manchester?’ Bass said.

‘Yeah.’ 

Lot cupped her hands around her mouth. Her voice cracked out over the sounds of pain and panic. ‘Grab a millie, split and head for Colby. Get a fucking move on! We ain’t got time to whinge.’

‘Diplomatic,’ Miles said.

The caravan scattered. Militia soldiers and Plains fighters scattered across the landscape, the injured slung between the able-bodied. 

‘Get some on horses,’ Monroe said, grabbing her shoulder. 

‘Why?’

‘Decoys,’ he said flatly. ‘Do it.’

Lot swore, short and to the point, and whistled three of her people over to get them mounted. She grabbed a spare horse, a rangy cart-house with a spiteful temperament and tendency to bolt. It tried to bite her - ears pinned, teeth bared and bony head striking out like a snake - but she slapped its head to the side. 

It was for Rachel. Of course. Monroe dragged her over to the horse and boosted her up, hand on her ass. Lot swallowed the hot bile of resentment in her throat and tossed the woman the reins.

‘Lot, ride with her,’ Miles said.

She gave him a hard look. ‘I need to get my brother.’

‘She’s more important,’ Miles said softly. ‘Rachel Matheson is the most important woman in the world.’

‘Rachel Matheson should have kept jogging,’ Lot said. ‘And if anything happens to my brother, the world can fuck itself sideways.’

The snort of laughter from up in the saddle put Lot on the back foot. She’d wanted to offend the other woman. Hurt her, even. Rachel’s bitter huff of amusement wasn’t what she’d expected.

‘Sounds like you, Miles.’

‘His brother’s dead,’ Lot said flatly. ‘Mine ain’t.’

She twisted from under Monroe’s hand and took off running. The chuntering roar of the helicopter was picking up again, the sand blasted ahead of it catching in her hair and collar. She stopped for a second, slicing the straps of Allie’s pack and hauling the shaken woman out from under the upturned cart. Scrambling over the cart, Lot glanced back. Rachel was on her way out of camp, that betraying flag of blonde hair tied down under a rag and Scanlon hanging onto her. 

Good. The most important woman in the world was safe, maybe now the rest of them could try not to get their asses handed to them. Lot jumped off the cart and ran back to where she’d left Danny. He was back on his feet, face greyish and bloody on one side. His horse had come back, sweat-dripping and unhappy with its adventure.

‘Where?’ he asked, wrenching his pack off the saddle.

‘Wray.’

The helicopter’s guns barked and someone screamed. Lot clenched her jaw and didn’t look to see if she knew the dead person. If Rachel Matheson’s lazy ass got one of her people killed… she’d break her jaw.

Lot shoved Danny into motion and they took off running across the hard ground, veering north. It was a longer route, but if they hit the old road it’d be easier. Ahead of them Lot saw Monroe and Miles cutting across the helicopter’s path, offering two tempting targets while Rachel fled.

‘Did you ever wonder,’ Lot asked, voice ragged as the dust caught in her lungs, ‘what our mother does for them.’

Danny conjured a wan grin, cracking the mask of sweat and dirt plastered to his face. He was wheezing again, breath whistling through clenched teeth as he forced himself to keep up the staggering run.

‘What ya mean?’

‘Don’t know,’ Lot muttered. They scrambled up a low hill, hands grabbing at dried grass for balance, and slid down the other side, kicking up ruts of soil and old stones with their heels. Lot swiped her hand over her face and glanced back. The...pilot, she thought, like a riverboat...seemed to have decided there were better pickings than two scrawny teens. She could still hear it, but it wasn’t getting closer. Her stride eased up, dropping from a run to a lope.

‘Don’t,’ Danny gritted out. ‘I can. Keep up.’

Lot snorted. ‘No you can’t,’ she said. ‘Save your energy for when you need it.’

It was sound enough reasoning that he could accept it and he slowed down, jogging raggedly along next to Lot. His shoulder kept bumping hers, his elbow jabbing her.

‘I could see ‘em,’ he said suddenly. His breathing had evened out with the break, just ragged instead of rasping. When Lot cocked her head at him, he waved up. ‘The people flying the plane. If I’d my rifle, I could have picked ‘em off maybe.’

Lot shook her head dubiously, but allowed, ‘Maybe.’

More walking. More silence. Matted grass and stones under their feet. Finally Danny looked up as they walked, shading his eyes with his arm. ‘You any idea-’

‘No,’ Lot said tersely. ‘I think they do though.'  



	12. Oh Lazarus, How Did Your Debts Get Paid?

 

It was dark by the time they limped past a sign saying ‘Welcome to Colby’, footsore, dusty and dodging tumbleweeds. Lot stopped under the listing canopy of an overgrown gas station, chewing absently on her lower lip. Turn west and they could run for the Wastelands. No-one would be fighting over that territory, her and Danny could lose themselves in the irradiated canyons and dust bowls. They’d contacts there, people who could always make use of a strong arm and a fairly shabby set of ethics.

Lot had never run from a fight before… Except that was just front, wasn’t it? As a kid she’d spent more time running than not, and if was as bad-ass as she pretended she’d have cut Andover’s throat for him years back. If the Patriot’s had power - if that had  power -  then running might be the smart thing to do. 

It would keep Danny safe.

‘Charlie?’ Danny asked, breaking the heavy silence. He was leaning against a dented pump, face pale in the shadows. His hair was sweaty and matted down to his forehead, making him scratch absently at it every few minutes. ‘What you wanna do?’

‘Want?’ she said, twisting her mouth around the word like it was strange. It was in a way. When had what she wanted  ever  mattered? The little things - what she ate, who she took to her bed - sure, but everything else.

‘ Don’t let go of Danny’s hand.’

‘Look at how much pain she’s in, Lot. Find me donors, my girl.’

‘Get us to Denver. We can stop the Patriots.’

None of that was Danny’s fault, though, and he was probably the only one who did care what she wanted. She rubbed a hand over her face, picking gritty bits of sand out of the corners of her eyes. 

‘You could go,’ she said. ‘Find somewhere safe. Find a nice girl.’

He snorted, ‘What’d I do with a nice girl?’ he asked. ‘I ain’t never met one.’

‘Hey.’ Lot said, poking a finger between her breasts. ‘What am I? Chopped liver?’

‘You’re my sister, I love the bones of you,’ Danny said, the mud on his face cracking as he grinned. ‘But you ain’t nice, Lot.’

She shrugged her acceptance of that and sighed, warm, desert air dry in her throat. ‘Lets go find mom, Uncle Miles and their little buddy...and kick an explanation for that fucking plane out of them.’

Danny laughed and shoved himself off the pump, huffing slightly as his breath caught between his ribs. ‘You gonna call him that to his face?’

The idea of it tucked the corner of Lot’s mouth with pale humour. That might actually be enough to kill the man. ‘Nope,’ she said.

Danny kicked a stone, sending it juddering down the cracked, tarmac road until it hit a kerb and bounced off. ‘ Does  he have a pet name for his dick?’

The tucked smile got a little deeper. Lot shook her head and gave her brother an exasperated look. ‘We ain’t that close - what, you got a crush on the guy?’

Danny huffed a laugh that trailed off into a breathless, dry little cough. ‘He isn’t exactly my type, but the guy’s a legend. I mean, you would wouldn’t you? Well, I mean, look who I’m asking?’

Reaching over, Lot flicked his ear. He ‘ow’ed and rubbed his ear like it had really hurt.

The road narrowed as they got into town, nudging them up off the tarmac and onto the flagged sidewalk. Most of the buildings they passed had broken windows and weather-rotted siding, but a few still had sand-scuffed glass panes intact. They cast back a shadowy, dark image of two scruffy siblings who looked older and harder than they should have.

They found the rest of the survivors huddled miserably in the foyer of an old hotel, sitting in clots and huddles on the cold tile floor. The militia physician, a hollow-cheeked misery of a man with the pissholes in snow eyes of a hard user, had set up a make-shift infirmary behind the old, mahogany check-in desk. Sweat was lashing off him as he worked, up to his elbows in blood. No one was screaming. He must have tapped into his private stash for that.

‘Lot! What the hell happened?’

‘Did the Patriots bring the power back? Is it over?’ Davies that one. He’d been 18 when the lights went out, old enough to never quite give up on his old dreams.

‘Did you know?’ 

‘Monroe knew!’

She shoved Danny into a chair, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly. ‘Shut up,’ she said. No one did. They were yelling over each other, a riot of anxious voices and fear. Lot raked her fingers through her hair, twisting it back from her face, and shoved the last of her doubts down into the sub-basement of her mind. She took a deep breath.

‘SHUT UP,’ she yelled, voice cracking and bouncing off the peeling, concrete walls. It shocked all of them to silence. Lot put her hands on her hips and glared around. ‘What the hell? So we’re outgunned, it’s happened before. That’s no reason to sit in a corner and cry about it.’

‘People were  killed,’ a man said. Lot didn’t recognise him. One of Monroe’s militia boys then. ‘That things just cut through us like a knife through butter. What the hell are we meant to do against that? How are we meant to fight something we can’t even reach?’

He looked around for support, and got it in nodds and apologetic cries of ‘he’s right, Lot!’

She slashed her hand through the air. ‘Enough. We ain’t farmers, we ain’t midwives. We fight for a living, we kill other people for a living. That means you don’t get to swoon and call it a day when someone kills you back better.’

A laugh jolted out of someone’s throat. ‘Not sure that makes any sense, boss,’ Davies said, shrugging when she glared at him.

‘Yeah, well, you know what I mean.’

One of Scanlon’s stolen men - Gabe, stocky and dark - shouldered to the front of the crowd. ‘So what?’ he demanded. ‘We should just salute the better killers and let them slaughter us? Like lambs?’

Lot stalked over to get in his face, close enough she could feel the heat of the long run off his skin.

‘Talking like that, you  sound  like a lamb,’ she said, nose to nose now. ‘Baa’ing and shitting and waiting for the slice. Plainsman’d know. When you meet someone that’s better than you? You fucking  cheat , you idiot.’

He blinked, startled and then snorted in amused reaction. ‘Cheat.’

‘Yeah, cheat,’ Lot turned, blue eyes finding every face in the crowd. They were scared. So was she. None of them could afford to be. That was how the Plains worked. ‘They’ve got guns and planes and fuck all else? Fine. They gotta get out of the plane to piss, that’s when we slit their throats. We poison their rations. We get Gwennie to hitch her tits up to her chin, and when some fuckers tries to follow her ass to heaven we cut them down. To start.  Then  we get nasty.’

‘Big talk,’ the milita man said. ‘From some green kid who’s probably never seen a  real  massacre.’

This time there was no mutter of agreement. Lot turned to him and bared her teeth in a nasty grin that made her cheeks hurt.

‘I was running with Andover’s crew when I was 11 years old,’ she said flatly. ‘You think I’m gonna be squeamish about  blood?’

The militia man twisted his face. ‘I’ve never heard of this Andover.’

‘Trust me, you’ll sleep better if you keep it that way,’ Lot said. Raising her voice to bounce off the walls she looked around the foyer again. ‘You know what, you aren’t any deader if you get shot from a plane instead of a horse. You’re just dead. So fucking grow a set and come up with some ideas to fuck these bastards over.’

Lot wasn’t much of a leader, she knew that. There were no cheers, no rush of confidence, but people were nodding and looking thoughtful. They’d got up off the floor. It would have to be enough. She turned around and Miles was standing next to her brother, a hard hand on his shoulder keeping a tight mouthed Danny in his chair.

Anger felt like a gear in Lot's chest, notching tighter with every breath she took. Taking a deep breath didn't make help any. It just gave the anger more room in her chest. She stalked over to him, glaring up into dark brown eyes.

Had her Dad's eyes been that dark, she wondered? She could remember his face, could remember every bit of him dying, but not the colour of his eyes. It didn't matter, she supposed.

'We need to talk,' she snapped. 'This is about to cost you a shitload more.'

Sometimes you said that and you could see the sneer in the mark's eyes. To Miles' credit he got it. Every clan member put a price on their life when they sold their sword. It was stupid to pretend they didn't. The only thing they could hold out for was a  fair  price for their blood.

'You talk a good game,' Miles said. 'You really up for doing all those things? Killing all those people?'

'I've done worse.'

He laughed - a rough noise with no humour in it - and rubbed his hand over his mouth. 'You know, earlier I thought...' He rubbed his mouth harder, grinding the words away against his fingers. 'See, you reminded me of someone, and I thought...but now I realise you remind me of me. Back when people called me the Butcher of Baltimore.'

Lot shrugged impatiently. 'They can call me what they want. That isn't what I want to talk about,'

Miles lifted his hand off Danny's shoulder, and Danny discreetly slipped the knife he'd palmed back into his sleeve. He slid off the chair and stood up, positioning himself outside Miles’ reach. Miles glanced at him, the corner of his mouth turning up in a wry smile.

'Yeah, well, you’re in luck. Monroe wants to talk to you too.'

A subtle tilt of his head gestured up. Lot looked and found Monroe standing on the second floor balcony, face unreadable and eyes watching her intently. From this distance his eyes looked grey - colourless. They should have been cold, but they weren't. 

'Great,' Lot said, looking away from him. 'Maybe between the two of you, you can explain how the hell Patriots can turn the power on.'

  
  
  
  
  



	13. Made a Dead Man's Money

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's short! I was away last week and I'm trying to get back into the headspace while distracted by the comic!

 

The disapproving set of Monroe’s mouth was familiar, and oddly reassuring. The power might be on, the world might be changing, but she could still make Sebastian Monroe taste his own spleen with a smart comment and a casual curse. Lot stalked the room he’d commandeered for his use. It had been a fancy hotel room once, now the tall mirrors were fly-spotted, the furniture was cracked and dried out, and Lot’s boots kicked up dust from the ragged carpet. Miles slouched in a chair by the window, cracked boots kicked up on the sill, and watched her.

‘A fucking  plane,’ she ranted, filling the air with words to try and hide behind them. Her finger jabbed furiously at  ‘You  knew  the fucking Patriots had fucking  power , and you just herded us into the killing pen for them. Why the hell didn’t you tell us-’

‘Because you would have run away with your tail between your legs,’ he said coldly. She spun on her heel to glare at him, mouth twisting into a tight line. ‘Or do you have a pretty speech to deny that?’

After a furious second, Lot twisted her mouth in a smirk. ‘Maybe I’d have sold you out to the Patriots,’ she said. ‘Played Ptolemy to their Alexander, get myself Egypt to retire too.’

Miles snorted from the window. ‘Be careful, Lot. You almost don’t sound like an illiterate savage.’

‘I can read,’ she muttered, oddly defensive. 

‘Illiterate offends you, savage doesn’t?’ 

She shrugged. ‘I know what I am. I’m ok with it.’

Something slid across Monroe’s face, an emotion that Lot couldn’t quite read. It gave life to his smile, turning it rueful. He glanced at Miles. ‘That’s a rare talent to have.’

The interruption had stolen the momentum from Lot’s anger. She stopped pacing and heaved a sigh, rubbing both hands over her face. She could feel the sand on her skin grate against the calluses on her hand.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘It’s done right. No fixing it now. I mean, you’re going to pay for my dead, but there’s no point crying over them, is there?’

Miles made a disgusted noise. ‘They’re  your  people, they followed you here. After that speech downstairs they’ll follow you to hell. But they aren’t worth crying for.’

Lot could read, and she  wasn’t  stupid. Something she’d said - or done, or how she’d done it - had made Miles sniff at the truth. Now he was trying to convince himself he was wrong, because...well, Lot knew what she was. It was fine, it was what she wanted, but he didn’t get to use her back to crawl up his pedestal.

‘You lost people too. I saw them drop on my way out, with your sensitivity that’s gotta be hard. I mean, how many tears will you shed?’ she asked, turning to walk over to Miles. Her voice had gone silky, pulling up the unobjectionable diction that Andover had beaten out of her. The shift made Miles scowl and shift, dropping his boots to the floor with a thunk. Lot leaned over, bracing her hands on the arm of the chair. She let the civilised drop from her face. ‘Tell me one fucking name, Butcher, I’ll go cry a river with you.’

He licked his lips, wetting cracked flesh in a tell she knew she’d seen before. Dad? Or had she met him before, back when he was Uncle Miles. The moonlight through the shutters painted silver over his face.

‘I don’t answer to you, kid,’ he said.

Lot snorted and shoved herself off the chair, straightening up. Her back cricked as she moved and she rolled her shoulders to pop the ache out of it. ‘I know the names of my dead,’ she said. ‘And I know crying over them won’t bring one back, not even if I wring myself out like a towel. So you’ll have to forgive this savage, but maybe we should focus on not joining them?’

He was faster than she’d thought. Stupid. She’d thought the same in the fight at New Vegas. Miles’ hand flashed out and grabbed her wrist, fingers digging down to grind tendon on bone.

‘Crying won’t save them, it might save you, Lot.’

She wrenched free, refusing to rub her aching wrist, and sneered at him. Whatever she was going to say was lost as Monroe’s sharp, irritated voice interrupted them.

‘Enough. Our blunt instrument is blunt already, Miles, stop trying to take the edge off her,’ he said as both of them looked around at him. ‘She doesn’t need saving, not on my dime. What she needs to do is stop whining, get on with her job, and deliver us to Denver.’

The pieces had all been there already, just waiting that one extra twist to click into place like a freshly picked lock. Once it did, how the hell hadn’t she worked it out before?

‘You mean, get you and Rachel to Denver,’ she said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Miles move, hand sliding to his hip, and that was a better tell than his lip lick. The sound that escaped her was more a croak than a laugh. ‘Advisor. What’s she got to advise you on? Military strategy? Geography? No, she did it. Didn’t she? Rachel Matheson ended the world.’

Silence hung in the room, thick enough to smother on. Lot left her weight on the balls of her feet, attention flickering between the two men and the various escape routes. Habit weighted them in order of survivability, considering and discarding as she went. 

‘Not - according to her - alone,’ Monroe finally said. A twitch of his finger reined Miles in. He walked over and put his hands on Lot’s shoulders, smiling benignly at her. ‘More importantly, we can fix it.’

He wanted a reaction. Lot could see that. It probably wasn’t her puking on his shoes, so she choked that back, bile stinging her throat. Not alone. No, Rachel never had been had she? Lot remembered them leaving together, vague, patchwork memories that skipped and hopped. Dad had been part of it. 

Before he’d died, Dad had told her to find Miles if anything happened. He was good at killing, he’d said. Back then, Lot hadn’t realised that was a family trait.

‘Why bother?’ she asked. ‘The Patriots seem to have that covered already.’

‘To a limited degree,’ Monroe said. ‘Unfortunately, that’s enough to make them gods. Denver is our Prometheus, Lot. If you get us there, I can turn the world back on.’

She shrugged his hands off his shoulders and stepped back. ‘You don’t have to sell me on it,’ she said. ‘Like you said, it’s my job. What you do once you get there is up to you.’

It confused them. They expected her to be avaricious or nostalgic or  something \- not mildly disinterested. Maybe she would have been if she could imagine it, but she couldn’t. The plane had made her brain ache with the possibilities of it, the idea of a whole  world  like that? She wasn’t even sure she could imagine the whole world on its own, never mind riddled with all those possibilities.

Still, she supposed that as long as there was someone to kill she’d be fine.

It took hours for them to come up with a workable plan, scattering their people across the Plains as bait while Monroe, Miles and Rachel made for Denver with Lot and Danny. It would have worked, only the Patriots had no patience. They sent Andover's boys in to flush them out before dawn.


	14. ...it wont be long til I'm dead and gone

An extended leg blocked her way forwards, eyes like pissholes in snow looking her up and down hungrily. ‘How much?’ 

The knife was tucked into a sheath under Lot’s skintight skirt, the blade cold and sharp against her thigh. It was reassuring. She’d have preferred a gun, but they didn’t have any that were small enough she didn’t end up walking funny. 

‘Sorry,’ she said, giving him a sloping smile. ‘You ain’t who I’m here to see.’

‘I’ve got money.’ He tossed a pouch on the table, spilling tiny, glittering diamond chips over the old, scarred formica. Some rolled off the edge and onto the floor, bright in the dirt. Lot let her habitual avariciousness show as she looked down, then up.

‘So do I,’ she said, nudging his leg out of the way with her knee. ‘I already been paid. Maybe after.’

She went to walk by and he grabbed her wrist, yanking her down into his lap. His other hand ran up her leg, from calf to just above her knee, digging his fingers deep enough into her flesh to bruise.

‘Maybe. Or maybe I take it as a toll.’

His hand groped higher. Lot grabbed his wrist, resisting the urge to break his thumb instead.

‘Hey, you boys are the only game in town this year,’ she said. ‘But I was bought and paid for to bring a smile to the boss’s face. You wanna explain to him why I’m sticky?’

He postured a bit, but his hand had already gone slack on her thigh. With a shrug he let her go, shoving her unceremoniously off his lap.

‘Probably have crabs anyhow,’ he muttered, glaring at his friends when they laughed.

Lot flicked him the finger and then skittered away when he slapped at her. She wriggled through the crowd of jeering, rowdy drinkers and cowed locals. One ginger-haired man, carroty hair crawling back from his face in a thin stubble, looked up at her. Suspicion wriggled over his face, but instead of raising the alarm he raised his mug of whiskey and stared at the table. 

According to Monroe, the Patriots were trying to endear themselves to the East Coast. They were making no such efforts on the Plains. 

She headed up the narrow stairwell, boots kicking dust and splinters down onto the people below. The door was closed, a Patriot standing guard outside with a automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked her up and down, reached back and rapped the door with the back of his hands.

‘Present for you, sir,’ he said. ‘All wrapped up pretty like.’

There was the sound of someone moving around in the room, the click of something locking, and then Garrett shoved the door open. His eyes dropped to Lot’s boobs first, bare and sweat-damp from the night’s heat, then crawled up to her face. 

His eyes widened and he reached for his gun. Lot was already in motion, snatching the knife from her thigh. A flick of her wrist sent it flying into the man’s throat, blade buried to the hilt in the vulnerable v of bare skin over his collar. His eyes widened, he opened his mouth and gargled up a frothy mouthful of blood. Both hands grabbed at the knife, trying to pull it free from his throat. 

Lot sidestepped, grabbed the man by the front of his uniform and yanked him in front of her. She hunched down to make her profile harder to predict. Blood dripped onto her shoulder in hot, wet gouts. Three shots barked, jarring the man’s body in her grip. He started to go limp, weight folding in on top of Lot.

She braced her shoulder against him and shoved, sending the dead weight floundering into Garrett. The noise had disturbed the party downstairs, angry voices raising the alarm. Habit had made Garrett try to catch the man, fumbling with his lax weight before shoving him aside.

Lot took two long strides into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. She grabbed the first thing within reach, fingers closing around the glued handle of a water jug. Garrett was bigger than her, stronger. Her advantage was in surprise, and meanness. She put her shoulder into the swing, painted china shattering against Garrett’s face. It laid his eyebrow open, blood sheeting down into his eye. Her other hand grabbed the gun, metal scorching her fingers, and wrenched it back to strain his fingers. His fingers spasmed and he dropped the gun, their scuffling feet sending it skidding over the floor.

He backhanded her, sending her crashing to the ground. Pain blurred through her face, ear pulsing hotly, and she tasted blood. Spitting, she kicked out viciously. The heel of her boot caught him in the pit of his knee, making him stagger as the joint popped, and she lunged for the Patriot’s gun.

The big, buff Patriot boot got there first, kicking the automatic hard enough to rip it off the dead man’s shoulder. It went skidding across the room. Lot gave herself a second of fury, then grabbed the knife instead. It was caught on  something  in the dead man’s throat. Lot wrenched it loose and came up onto her feet, lashing out blindly. 

Garrett jerked his hand back in time to save his fingers, the blade flaying a strip off his knuckles. 

‘Lot, this is stupid.’ He shook his hand, blood flying. ‘My men will be here any second.’

She peeled her lips back in a tight smile as gunfire and screams echoed up through the floor. ‘Mine are already here. Give it up, Garrett. You were a good merc.’

His mouth twitched and he wiped his eyebrow on his sleeve. ‘I was a good liar.’

‘Same thing.’

He shrugged, ‘Maybe.’

She swapped the knife from one hand to the other. ‘Give up, Garrett. We want you alive. If you talk, we might not even cut off anything you’d miss...much.’

‘You’ve not got the balls for it,’ Garrett said. ‘Andover could beat you bloody, you never could hurt someone who weren’t fighting back.’

‘I’m fucking the President of the Monroe Republic. I got people now.’

He cracked a ragged laugh. ‘You always did have a way about you, kid. Nothing but sheer gall and attitude, but people listen. Thing is, I’m a patriot.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ Lot said.

‘Same thing.’

She went for him, knife aimed low and vicious at his gut. They wanted him alive, but a gut wound could keep you alive long enough that you’d split on your mates for an end. He blocked, twisting her arm until her wrist gave with an odd click and a sharp pain. Biting a curse between her teeth, she ducked her chin and butted her head up into his face. Bone clacked on bone, and Garrett grunted. He drove his fist into Lot’s side, angled up to compress her ribs.

Twist and dodge, an elbow to the chin, a knee into the gut. Lot had always been a better fighter than Garret, having the edge on technical skill for what she lost in strength. Apparently Garrett had been a really good liar, because he was better than her now. He took punishment, but she took more.

Finally, he caught her across the chin with a left that made the world grey out around her. Lot stumbled and shook her head, ears ringing and vision fading grey and white at the edges. Garrett licked blood from his lips and picked Lot up, hand around her throat. He hammered her down into the desk, the wood cracking under the impact of her shoulders. The air huffed out of her and she couldn’t get it back in, her lungs cramping up around her ribs. 

‘Sorry, Lot,’ Garrett said, bending down to pick up the gun. ‘You just picked the wrong side. I guess I’m not surprised, but-’

He put the gun to her forehead, pressing it down hard against the bone. Lot hit him with an inkwell. It did no fucking good - Garrett’s nose bust messily over his face, but you didn’t need one of those to pull a trigger. Still, that had always been Lot’s problem; she’d never been able to just lay down and lose.

Garrett grabbed her jaw, squeezing and forcing Lot to look up at him. ‘Thanks, kid,’ he said, moving the gun to between her eyes. ‘You made this easier.’

‘You too,’ Monroe said, voice a rough rasp. When Garrett spun around to look at him, Monroe hammered the butt of a gun between his eyes. The big man grunted and then toppled over backwards, landing on the ground with a thud. Stepping over him, Monroe grabbed Lot’s hand and pulled her up off the desk. A bloody hand cupped the side of her face, his mouth tightening as he took in the bruises. ‘You ok?’

Lot snorted. That was stupid. She touched her nose with wary fingers. ‘Fuck, no,’ she said. ‘Look at me. I won, but he beat me like a drum.’

‘You won?’

Lot licked blood off her teeth. ‘He’s out, I’m not. I won. Scuse me.’

She took three limping steps away from Monroe, doubled over and puked behind the desk. Her ribs protested the heaving retches. Once she was done, she searched the desk while Monroe hogtied Garrett, wrenching the man’s bare, scared arms behind his back. She tossed him the lock box she found, stuffing the folder of paperwork into the back of her skirt.

They hauled him back down into the bar’s main room. It was mostly Monroe that did the hauling, hand hooked through the loops of rope hobbling Garrett. Lot just kicked his arm loose when it got stuck between the railings.

Davies wolf-whistled at her as she followed Monroe through the door. The big man had a rut through his beard - raw skin showing through the blood-matted scruff - and was carrying a shiny new semi-automatic. She gave him the finger. 

‘Yuck it up, Davies,’ she said. ‘Next time, your turn to wriggle your ass.’

‘Who the hell at?’ Scanlon asked, slitting a Patriot’s throat. ‘Bears?’

Danny tossed Lot her jeans, belt jangling where it was still hooked through the loops, and she wriggled into them as the rest bickered. He grabbed her elbow when she wobbled, keeping her on her feet.

‘No sign of the guy with the magic fingers,’ he said grimly. ‘This was the last place we’d heard mutters about someone seeing lights in the sky.’

‘We’ll hear more,’ Lot said, sucking in her stomach to fasten her jeans. That hurt too. She pointed at Garrett with her chin. ‘And he’ll sing like a bird once Monroe’s pet torturer gets through with them.’

Danny pulled a face. ‘Guy’s a creep.’

‘Monroe or Strausser?’

‘Strausser,’ Danny said, rolling his eyes. ‘You gotta keep ‘em straight, Lot. Monroe’s a  pervert .’

The icy ‘Really?’ from behind him made even fight-cocky Danny blanch. He turned around and stared wide-eyed at Monroe. ‘I...um...I meant...’

‘He meant, he’s an asshole,’ Lot said, giving Danny a shove. ‘Go, find Miles. See if he needs help up if he’s sat down.’

Her brother didn’t need telling twice, sliding out from under Monroe’s glare and making himself scarce. Lot untied her shirt from over her stomach, letting the fabric drop to drape her hips. She glanced at Monroe, raising her eyebrows. ‘We good to go? We should get out of here before reinforcements get here.’

He wiped blood off his face, fresh stuff leaking from a graze on his cheek. ‘Get some of your men to stay, burn the town. I want everyone to know that the price for giving succor to the Patriots is more than they want to pay.’

‘No,’ Lot said. He gave a slow, cold look. She shrugged. ‘You do it if you want, but it’s stupid as fuck. This is the Plains, nobody’s gonna  give  anyone anything to start with. Make the Patriots the bad guys, then you might get mates rates.’

His jaw clenched, muscle bubbling under the scruff that coated his face. ‘I don’t appreciate being questioned, Lot.’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t ask a question, just told you my opinion. Do what you want with it.’

Davies had her sword belt. She buckled it on as she limped out of the bar, snapping out commands as if the skin between her shoulders wasn’t cringing in anticipation of the shot in the back.

Except he didn’t, and when they left town the bar was still standing. That worried her.

 

Leaning back against the wall in Monroe's makeshift command, Lot twisted her fingers in his hair. The curls were sticky with sweat and gritty with sand, matting under her palms. His mouth pressed against her, tongue eager and wet between her legs. Sharp teeth scraped her clit, pinching hard enough to make everything clench, and he cupped his hands under her ass, shifting her so he could get a better angle. The wet, clever twist of his tongue thrusting deep inside her. Her stomach muscles cramped and fluttered as she came, adding the pain of fresh bruises to the hot twist of pleasure. 

'Fuck,' she hissed between clenched teeth. 'God, Monroe.'

Monroe laughed against the wetness of her. Still tasting her with slow, lazy swipes of his tongue. 'You could call me Bass.'

She shrugged. He had said that before, she never did. At first because it didn't matter, and then because 'Bass' was what Rachel and Miles called him. She tugged at his hair until he looked up at her. 'Maybe we should knock this on the head. It ain't a good idea.'

It wasn't as if she knew him, she wasn't sure how he'd react to anything half the time. Like now. She'd been pretty sure he'd fall somewhere between indifferent and pissed, not give her that wild, naked grin. 

'What?' she asked suspiciously.

He shrugged and shifted his weight, resting his chin on her hip. His breath was warm against her stomach. 'You like me.'

'Fuck off.'

She shoved him away. He rocked back on his heels and rose easily to his feet, unbuttoned jeans hanging low around his hips. Not bothering to be careful of her bruises, he used the heavy length of his body to pin her to the wall.

‘You posture and strut with the best of them, Lot,’ he said, face buried in her hair. ‘Just as hard and tough and easy to fuck as any merc on the Plains. Except it’s a lie.’

Lot bared her teeth, anger catching in her throat like a ball of foil. ‘You think I’m soft?’

Monroe shifted, the hard length of his erection pressing against her stomach, and his breath made a hard, quick hitch against her cheek. ‘Where it counts,’ he said, catching her wrist as she went to hit him. His thumb traced the tight line of her tendon. ‘I think you’re a nasty, grudge-holding bitch, and I prefer you on my side in a fight. You’ve just got a good heart, and you’ve fucked me one too many times to pretend I’m not in there.’

‘Watch me.’

‘I do, and I like you too.’

She shoved at him, ‘What are we, 12? You gonna give me your letter next?’

The long body pressed against her went briefly still, then he snorted against her ear. ‘Letter  jacket’  he said. ‘And no, someone else got that. I’ll give you the Republic.’

She laughed at him. ‘What? You going to dress me up in some fancy skirt suit and take me to fancy fucking dinners in Philadelphia? Get some poor society matron to teach me company manners and how to suck a cock without making a mess?’

He caught the back of her neck and pulled her head back, looking down at her. ‘I’ll give you a command, men, weapons...and my ear. There’s people who’d kill for a chance at any of those.’

It was the fact that she was - a bit - tempted that scared Lot. She knew better. Knew better than to want anything to big, knew better than to try depending on anyone else, knew better than to care. Yet when she took a  breath and opened her mouth, what she was going to say was ‘Danny, too?’ and not ‘Go fuck yourself.’

In the end she didn’t get the chance to say anything. The door opened and Miles and Rachel walked in, both of them pausing on the door step. 

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Miles growled. ‘I knew you were fucking someone, but her? She’s a kid.’

Rachel just looked disgusted, ‘You always were a lecherous idiot, Bass. Could you at least lock the door?’

‘You could knock,’ Monroe said.

Lot shoved him away and ducked from under his body, hitching her jeans up and buttoning them. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m done.’

‘I’m not’ Monroe said, grabbing her elbow. ‘They can come back later.’

‘No,’ Miles said. ‘We can’t. Try and get some of the blood back up to your thinking brain.’

Lot took her elbow back and grinned at Monroe, ‘You got a hand. You got two, have an orgy.’

She pulled her t-shirt down and walked out, giving Miles and Rachel a smirk on the way past. When she stepped out into the air, she realised it was nearly dawn. The last week they’d been squatting behind the rusted fences of an old fracking site. The air stank of the old chemicals that had made the area inhospitable to settlement, but it was usually only in the summer you risked the gas igniting.

Halfway across the lot she noticed that people were avoiding meeting her eye. Not just the militia, her own people. She stopped and looked around, the sweep of blue eyes sending a wave of productivity through the area as people suddenly remembered errands or ducked their heads to focus on their hands. It made the back of Lot’s neck crawl, tasting pennies on her tongue.

‘Davies,’ she said. When he pretended not to see her, she turned his name into a barked order. ‘Davies!’

He froze, grimacing, and turned around. ‘Boss?’

She stalked over to him. ‘What’s going on?’

Davies cleared his throat and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. The lingering lazy heat of Monroe’s touch was rapidly melting away, leaving tension in its wake. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this about Garrett?’

‘No. He’s still out for the count,’ Davies said. ‘If he’s smart, he’ll stay that way. Strausser and Allie are arguing over who gets to put the knife to him when he wakes up.’

Lot didn’t take the distraction bait. ‘Then what is going on? Why’s everyone on….where’s Danny? Davies, where’s my brother.’

The razor-nicked line of Davies’ throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, running his hand over his head. ‘Lot, he was gone before we knew what was going on. Him and Scanlon, a couple of Monroe’s boys - the blonde advisor sent them out on a mission when we were securing Garrett.’


	15. Whole wide world coming after you...

 

It turned out that blue balls and the scourge of Rachel’s contempt were not a combination conducive to Monroe’s peace of mind. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, still tasting Lot on his tongue, and sprawled out aggressively in a dusty, long-abandoned chair. His legs sprawled out, boots kicking divots in the cracked linoleum. 

‘She’s half your age,’ Rachel said scornfully. ‘And practically feral. It’s pathetic.’

‘Come on, Rachel,’ he drawled, lacing his hands over his stomach. ‘Be consistent. You  said  you preferred me when I was a drunken, womaniser. Now you’re whining because I’m getting laid.’

‘You make me sick,’ she said, turning her back on him.

He smirked at the narrow slope of her back, all angles and anger. ‘That’s not what you said that night in-’

She spun around, hand raised. Miles grabbed it, fingers wrapping around her wrist. The tendons in her arm stood out against her skin. ‘Enough, Rachel. If Bass wants to make a fool of himself, let him. We have more pressing issues, remember?’

It took a second, but she eventually made a resentful sound. Yanking her arm free, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a narrow metal tube. Something about it - the way it was machined, the way she  held  it - tweaked ‘weapon’ to Monroe. He straightened in the chair, shifting to get his feet under him.

‘We found this in Garrett’s belongings,’ Rachel said. Her eyes flicked to Monroe and her lip curled. ‘Relax. Without a power-source, it is just an attractively finished piece of jewelry. With power, it’s a vibroacoustic gamma wave device. If Garrett had the opportunity to use this? Your raid would have ended with men cowering under tables and Lot crying for her mama.’

‘Hard to imagine,’ Monroe said.

Miles snorted. He grabbed the half-drunk bottle of whiskey from the side-board, splashing a finger of booze into a scratched glass. ‘Stop trying to be jaded, Monroe. It’s a sonic death ray. How many times did we wish we had one of those?’

Holding his hand out, Monroe grabbed the bottle when Miles shoved it at him. ‘Do you think it goes ‘ommmmmmmm’?’

They traded half-smirks, old memories of plastic guns and summer wars rising to the surface of the last curdled decade. Rachel - as always - spoilt it.

‘Just wait, I’m sure you’ll be able to find out soon,’ she said. ‘The man who made this? His name is Sanborn, he’s a weapon’s designer. Neurotic, obsessive, and very easy to control - and now Flynn has him and his pendant.’

That seemed to merit taking a swig of whiskey, even though it drowned the taste of Charlie in rotgut and bite. ‘Remind me to send you a thank you card for the Blackout, Rachel, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.’

‘Shut up, Bass,’ Miles said wearily. ‘How much shit are we in, Rachel?’

She ran both hands through her hair, lifting it up from the nape of her neck in a heavy, gold-silk mass, and let out a slow, controlled sigh. 

‘My research was defensive, I wanted to stop fighting,’ she said. Monroe snorted and regretted it when her face cracked, all the front peeling away to show raw flesh underneath. It was only pathetic when his jibes dug too deep. ‘It’s what I wanted. This...this was never  what was meant to happen. I told you and...I told you. If I could fix it, I would. I lost  everything,  I lost...’

The door slammed open, hitting the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, and Lot strode into the room. One of her scruffy, Mad Max tribe was at her heels, grim faced and armed. Monroe traded a quick, wary glance with Miles, their bond still enough to condense a conversation down to a look and the grim tilt of Miles’ mouth. 

‘Lot,’ Monroe said, standing up and reaching for his gun. ‘Did you want something.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. Without breaking stride, she cocked her fist back to her ear and punched Rachel in the face. Rachel went down on the floor, boneless as a doll. Satisfaction filled Lot’s face and she shook her hand. ‘That.’

Monroe shoved in front of Miles, grabbing Lot and shoving her back to the wall. The Mad Max extra reached for his belt, but Monroe pointed his gun in his face and he backed down. 

‘Miles, see to Rachel,’ he said, looking over at his brother. 

They stared at each other for a moment. This wasn’t a conversation they’d had before, but they managed to find common ground.

‘If she’s sold us out,’ Miles rasped coldly, crouching down help Rachel sit up. ‘I’ll kill her no matter who she’s screwing.’

Monroe looked down into Lot’s face. ‘If she’s sold us out, I’ll kill her myself.’

She snorted. ‘If I’d sold you out, you’d have woken up with my knife in your throat. Let go of me.’

‘You going to hit Rachel again?’ Monroe asked. 

‘Maybe.’

‘Why?’ Rachel asked, hand to her mouth and blood bright on her fingers. ‘What the hell did I do to you.’

Charlie shoved Monroe off her, and he let her.

‘You sent my men out on a mission,’ she said. ‘Where?’

Wiping red over her face, Rachel grimaced. ‘Not that I see what business is it of yours, but I sent them to scout out Andover’s camp. If we’re to head off the Sanborn disaster, we need intel. Basically, you’re hired help, they’re helping. More than you are right now.’

Lot tried to kick her, foot swinging at Rachel’s jaw with vicious intent. Before it could connect, Monroe grabbed her by the waist and yanked her back. ‘Lot, enough.’

She rammed her elbow back into his ribs, making him grunt but not shifting him. ‘She sent my  brother,’  she spat. ‘If anything happens to her-’

Miles got his hands under Rachel’s arms and helped her to her feet, stroking her hair out of her face. ‘Touch her again,’ he said. ‘And if your brother comes back, he’ll be an only child.’

She spat at him.

Apparently, when Lot got in a fight she liked to double down. Monroe dragged her out of immediate proximity to either Matheson. ‘Satisfying though this might be,’ he said. ‘This isn’t helping anyone. Certainly not your brother. He’s not a little kid; he can take care of himself.’

Blue eyes gave him a contemptuous look and Lot wrenched free of his grip. ‘He’s an  idiot,  a soppy idiot who thinks that people are intrinsically good and he can trust anyone he’s had his dick in. He’s my  brother.’

Davies put his hand on her shoulder. 

‘Andover knows that too, Lot,’ he said. ‘He’s too valuable a piece to waste. If he does catch him, he’ll be a hostage not a casualty.’

The fact she listened, instead of squirming away from like an offended cat, gave Monroe the brief, powerful desire to cut the man’s throat. Tempting, but hardly relevant.

Rachel had taken her hand away from her mouth, split lip away swelling and purpled. ‘So if we’re done with this ridiculous display of sentimentality?’

Lot had been turning to go, but she stopped and turned back. Her clever, mobile face was empty and still. She walked over to Rachel, giving Monroe a reassuring twitch of her fingers when he moved to block her.

‘It’s not sentiment, it’s love,’ she said. ‘Not that you’d know anything about that - you don’t have anyone to love, do you?’

Rachel flinched, shoulders tightening. ‘I have children, a family. I-’

‘No. You don’t. I never let go of his hand,’ she said. ‘You did. So live with it.’

She turned and stalked out, her hulking friend shrugging at Monroe - like that should mean anything to him - and followed her. He might have followed her, but before he could Rachel collapsed. She slid through Miles’ hands and collapsed onto the floor, keening ‘no’ over and over again into her hands.

Miles dropped to his knees next to her, hitting the ground with a crack he’d feel in his joints later. He wrapped his arms around her, stroking her hair with clumsy, rough hands. She shoved him away, sending them both sprawling on the ground. Miles got up, she didn’t.

‘Lot,’ Monroe said. ‘Lottie. Charlotte...’

‘Charlie,’ Miles finished for him. His voice cracked. ‘Holy hell, Lot is Charlie? She’s alive?’

Of course she was, it was obvious. Monroe wiped his hand over his mouth, remembered the taste of Charlie and snatched it away again. Miles’ niece. Ben’s daughter. 

‘Did you know?’ Rachel asked, voice breaking and cracking bitterly. She looked up, tear-raw cheeks wet and shining. ‘Did you know it was her, Miles? I won’t forgive that, I can’t forgive-’

He could have said no, but all Miles’ squashed suspicion showed naked on his face. Like a confession. Monroe was angry, confused and conflicted. It made him cruel, it always had. Especially when it came to defending Miles.

‘Come on, Rachel,’ he said. ‘If anyone should have known it was you. What sort of mother doesn’t know her own children?’

It never made him feel better, the cruelty, but it did feel better not to be alone with it. He watched Rachel curl in on herself, and avoided looking at Miles.


	16. Chapter 16

Chasing Danny down would just make it more likely they’d both get caught. It was still hard. Lot sat on the roof of an old garage, corrugated metal scorching her ass through her jeans, and sweated the long wait out. She didn’t know if the sick-tasting ball in the back of her throat was fear for Danny, anger at Rachel, or…

It felt unnatural. She wasn’t Charlie anymore, hadn’t been for a very long time. Now that they knew, though, it felt like there were two people in her skin. Charlie – if she remembered right – had been a biter too.

The water came up first, tossed up from the ground and thunking onto the roof next to her. It rolled towards the edge, sand-coloured water sloshing against the scratched up plastic. Lot thought about letting it drop, just from spite, but moved her foot at the last minute to stop it pitching off the roof. Miles followed it up, boosting himself up and getting a knee onto the roof.

Lot glared at him. ‘Fuck off,’ she rasped. Her throat was more dry than she’d thought, the words catching against the back of her tongue. She bent down and grabbed the bottle, twisting the scarred-up lid off. While she drank, Miles sat down beside her. He smelled like whiskey and metal oil.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That ain’t gonna happen now is it? We’re family.’

She pulled a face – at him, at the tepid water – and slouched back onto her elbow. ‘Danny’s my family. Gwennie’s my family. You’re just some guy with a matching blood type.’

The corner of his mouth twisted and he looked down, picking at a ragged edge on his thumbnail.

‘I’d figured it out, you know,’ he said. He cocked his knee up, elbow braced and hand dangling, and squinted towards the horizon. ‘I had. I just didn’t want it to be true.’

That kinda stung. It was stupid, but it did. Lot snorted at both of them and shrugged crookedly. ‘Can’t blame you. I don’t figure that many people want someone like me in their family tree.’

‘Kid, you met me?’ Miles asked. ‘I was a monster, now I’m a drunk. Don’t know which is worse. Whatever you’ve done, you just ain’t had enough time to catch up with me on the shit that gets you pruned from the family tree stakes. It’s just…wanted something better than this for you.’

He grimaced and held his hand out for the bottle, correcting himself as she slapped it against his palm. ‘Easier, I mean.’

Lot shrugged. ‘I’m ok with me, don’t expect other people to be.’

Miles twisted the lid off the bottle and took a drink, pulling a face at it hit his tongue. ‘Tastes like somebody already drank this. This is why I stick to the hard stuff.’

‘Just ask,’ Lot said.

Overhead a vulture spiralled through the flat blue sky, following something dying with their usual ineffable patience. Lot slid forwards to the edge of the roof, legs dangling, and squinted through the sun’s glare. All she could see was dust and scrub and the long, hot ribbon of the road.

Dead bodies would attract more than one vulture.

When Miles finally did as she told him, it caught her by surprise. ‘What happened to Ben?’

Lot rubbed the back of her neck, sweat itchy against her skin, and only knew she was lying when she opened her mouth. ‘He got sick,’ she said. ‘He died. It wasn’t bad.’

Silence. She glanced around. Miles had a flask in his hand and took a swig, wiping his hand over his mouth when he finished. ‘You’re not a bad kid, Lot, but you’re a shit liar. What happened.’

There had been blood on the green grass, on the shabby sides of their scavenged tent. So much blood and still enough in them to keep screaming. It kept the flies away. She’d learned that later, under Andover. The screaming kept the flies away, so let them live till you were down.

Her hands cramped into fists, knuckles white under her skin and the jolt of fresh pain reminding her it wasn’t now. ‘It happened. He died. The details won’t help you sleep.’

‘Fuck,’ Miles muttered. There was a pause and then a long, scarred hand dropped a clumsy pat onto her shoulder. Lot looked at it and then up the ragged jersey-sleeve to Miles’ face. His mouth twisted wryly at the corner. ‘Weird?’

‘Little bit.’

‘Yeah, here too.’ He squeezed her shoulder anyhow before he took his hand back, the rough acknowledgement of that fell into place easier than the flaccid attempt at sympathy. ‘Look, I don’t know you, not really, but I did you a favour once, so I’m calling it in.’

Lot rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll talk to her later.’

He shook his head. ‘Not Rachel, that’s between you two. I can’t get in the middle, it ain’t right. Go talk to Bass.’

‘Later,’ Lot said. ‘My brother’s still missing, and…’

‘No good ever comes of leaving Bass till later,’ Miles said. He tapped his finger against his temple. ‘He’s got rats in his head sometimes. Don’t let them get their side in first.’

‘After what happened, Miles, we all got rats in our heads. Maybe Monroe’s just swim better than yours.’ She shrugged and boosted herself to her feet, the roof creaking as she moved. ‘You ok with it? Me and Monroe?’

He scratched his jaw, nails rasping through peppered stubble, and took another swig from the flask. Maybe the rats were keeping their noses up today. ‘I didn’t figure it was my business,’ he admitted. ‘I…yeah, I guess. He’ll take care of you. Much as you’ll let him.’ He glanced up at her, squinting one eye shut as the sun’s glare hit the side of his face. ‘Or hell, maybe you’ll take care of him.’

‘Aw, for fuck’s sake,’ Lot muttered, walking over to the ladder. ‘Half the reason I screwed him in the first place was to piss you and her off.’

She slid down, Miles’ voice following her like a maudlin herald. ‘Yeah, well, good news then, Rachel is not gonna be ok with it.’

********

‘I didn’t lie to you.’

Even to Lot, the hard statement sounded less like an attempt at defense and more like a challenge. Maybe she’d meant to be. Anger was easy, it was simple, and she had overflowing stores of it after her confrontation with Rachel.

Monroe looked up from the gun he was putting back together, fingers still on the freshly oiled parts. He looked remote and dangerous, eyes glittering like broken glass. After a second, he slotted the trigger mechanism back into place with a click. ‘I never said you did.’

Lot shifted uncomfortably, tempted to take him at his word and leave. It wasn’t like she owed him anything, and what he owed her could be counted out in bags of sparkling stones. Instead, she hunched her shoulders and shoved her hands into her pockets.  
‘Just...fucking yell at me, or something,’ she said, scowling at him.

Monroe sat back, hooking his arm over the back of his chair, and looked at her with that old amused, contempt. Like she was an animal doing something stupid. ‘Why should I? I was never under the misapprehension that you were out for anyone but yourself, Lot. Or would you prefer Charlie now? Just so no one forgets who you’re claiming to be?’

‘You think I’m lying?’

‘Lying then, lying now,’ Monroe shrugged. He set the gun aside and stood up, walking around the desk to stand in front of her. One hand stroked her hair, twisting a gritty lot of dulled blonde around a finger. ‘I know you aren’t who Rachel is going to imagine you are. I know you’re a crude little killer, who likes to fuck while the blood’s still wet on her hands.’

Lot tilted her chin up stubbornly. ‘I told you, I didn’t lie to you.’

He used her hair as a leash to pull her closer. She clenched her jaw and, in the closest to an apology she was going to get, gave him a step. Monroe stared down at her, stroking a thumb along her cheekbone.

‘It doesn’t matter anymore,’ he told her coldly. ‘You’re Charlotte Matheson, and you’re useful to me now. It is in your best interests, and your brothers, to continue to be useful. Do you understand? You are the choke collar around her throat.’

Lot laughed at him, the sound rough in her throat. His hand tightened in her hair, twisting until it hurt. Anger and offense turned his eyes bleak and cold, the betrayal he’d always expected finally exposed. It made Lot feel...better. At least she wasn’t the only broken thing.

‘Works for me,’ she said, twisting the collar of his t-shirt around her hand. ‘You want me to keep Rachel in line, I want you to piss Rachel off. Nice and clean, nothing to do with feelings or any of that shit.’

A shadow flickered through his eyes, not quite amusement but maybe uncertainty. The hard line of his mouth softened slightly, ‘Exactly.’  
‘Still,’ she tugged. ‘No reason to cut your dick off to spite your face, right?’

He snorted, grimaced away a smile and let her yank him down into a kiss, all teeth and stuff they were probably never gonna say. The fist in her hair loosened, fingers working free of the tangled mane to grip the back of her neck, and she yanked with sudden, brutal impatience at the belt of his jeans. Monroe dragged her over to the desk, bending her back over the scattered pages. He dragged his mouth down her jaw to the line of her throat, alternating the swipe of his tongue with the sharp pressure of his teeth. 

Marking her. 

It would piss her off, but she’d raked the skin off his back before so…

She worked her hand into his hair, shoving him lower until his mouth reached the swell of her breast. Waiting for the quick pain of teeth made Lot squirm, hooking her legs around his hips to drag him closer…

A rattle outside made her twist around, propping herself up on her elbow to listen. If Danny was back… or Andover had sent a message… Or someone had dropped a shovel, because no one came banging on the door or yelled for her. Tension unknotted and she flopped back down...looking down her body at Monroe.

‘He’s...’

‘Your brother,’ Monroe finished for her. He pushed himself up off her and stepped back, leaving her to pull her clothes straight again. Sitting up, she rubbed her spit-wet neck. Monroe fastened his jeans and shrugged. ‘I can’t throw stones, I’ve ditched my share of hook-ups when Miles needed his ass pulled out of the fire.’

‘Yeah, not the first time Danny’s been a cock-block either,’ Lot admitted wryly. She rubbed her hands against her knees, calluses catching on the denim. ‘Look, I should probably tell you...’

This time, it was someone yelling her name. She bolted off the desk and dodged past Monroe, shouldering the door open to topple out into the glare of sunlight. Someone grabbed her arm before she could trip. She grunted her thanks before she registered the fall of pale hair and split lip. 

‘You should have told me,’ Rachel said, eyes wild in her taut, still face. Her bony fingers dug into Lot’s arm, pinching the flesh until it bruised. ‘If I’d known it was Danny, I’d have never… I would have kept him safe.’

Lot jerked her arm free, acid scalding her throat.‘You never have before.’

‘That’s not fair. You don’t know what...you don’t know why I had to go, Charlie. It wasn’t my fault.’

‘I know it wasn’t mine,’ Lot said. ‘And that’s not my name.’

She stalked away, heading towards Miles. Her uncle was standing down the hill at the edge of the compound, his hand resting on his gun. Davies was heading back up from the gate, but he stopped when he saw her approaching. One hand swiped a film of sweat from his scorch red forehead. 

‘Lot,’ he said, holding out his hand to block her way. ‘He’s here under the flag, he wants to trade.’

Lot grimaced. The closest thing to anything sacred the Plains had was the trade flag. Cut the flow of trade out here, and people died faster than from a plague. The war-tribes had extended it to include trading prisoners and declarations of war or surrender. Despite the scowls on her people’s faces, they expected the courtesies to be observed.

She paused for a second, steeling herself, and then stalked forward. Miles stepped to the side as she reached him, giving her equal standing. Titus stood outside the gate, smiling genially under the guns aimed at him. His boys were behind him, smirking as they looked over the compound, and Danny was kneeling at his feet.

‘Dan?’ Lot said. He lifted his head like his neck hurt, squinting through a swollen eye. He tried for a smile, fresh blood dripping from mashed lips.

‘Hey, sis,’ he slurred. ‘Bit of a fuck up.’

‘Bit of an idiot,’ she snapped. Lifting her eyes to Titus she glared at him. ‘What the fuck do you want, Titus?’

Pursing his lips, Andover shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Now, now, Lottie,’ he said. ‘I know you have a better vocabulary than that. I didn’t spend all that time teaching you to read, to listen to you dropping the f-bomb in front of all these nice people. What will they think of us?’

From behind her, Monroe said crispy, ‘She asked you a question, Mr Andover. What do you want.’ He had to pitch his voice to carry over the sound of Rachel’s broken, hitching sobs. 

‘Want?’ Andover said, clasping his hands behind his back. He rocked on the balls of his feet. ‘I want respect, gratitude, a simple thank you for lives saved and fostered-’

Lot snorted. ‘Wind it in, Titus. They might be new, I’m not. All those years we spent together remember-’

‘...and we’re grateful,’ Rachel said, stepped past Lot. Her voice was low and reasonable, the sort of voice you negotiated with a dangerous man in. ‘You took care of Charlie - Lot and Danny, after my husband died?’

Andover gave her his best, shit-eating grin. ‘That I did, took them in and raised them as my own. With my boys. Lottie there, though...’ he leaned forward like he was confiding something. ‘Wilful girl.’

‘What about Danny?’ Rachel asked. ‘What was he like. He was always a good baby.’

It might have worked on someone like Monroe. With Andover, it was just playing into his twisted hands. He was smiling, eyes crawling like beetles, as he plucked at Rachel’s strings and played the reasonable, erudite man. A scholar among savages.

‘Looking back,’ he admitted, switching his smile from Rachel to Monroe. ‘I admit my alliance with the Patriots may have been in...error. They approached me as reasonable men, heirs to the Constitution I once-’

Lot shot him. He stopped mid-word, mouth hanging open, as his brains splattered the boys standing behind him. Rachel gasped and stepped back, her reaction quick and muted. Shock froze them for a second, then they grabbed for their weapons. Lot swept the gun along the loose semi-circle of killers.

‘Think about it,’ she said flatly. ‘Titus is worm food, what’s fighting gonna get you?’

A blond man, pink scalp shining through his clipped hair, grimaced horribly. His teeth was filed and capped with rusted metal. ‘We aren’t like you,’ he said. ‘Andover loved us! We’ll kill you-’

Lot would have shot him, but Monroe got there first. His automatic stuttered and dropped the blond in a screaming pile. It made for a good deterrent, the man trying to plug his slippery guts back in through his unzipped side. Danny lurched to his feet, slipping in the blood, and staggered into a run. Dodging past Lot, Davies met him halfway and caught him under the arms to drag him out of the line of fire.

‘Anyone else?’ Monroe asked.

‘We all hated him,’ Lot said. ‘You really wanna die for a pedo that used you as blood-bags when we didn’t hit gold on a raid? If you do, I’ll make it happen.’

Violence hung in the air on a string, hands on weapons and faces grimacing with rage and grief. It could have gone wrong, but the boys had lost Garret and now Andover. It had taken the heart out of them. After a second, one of the scar-faced seconds waved the rest of the tribe back.

‘This isn’t over, Lot,’ he warned, voice ruined and scratching. He spat on the ground and jabbed a grimy finger in her direction. ‘You pissed on the tribes. This ain’t over.’

She gave him the finger and a grin. His face twisted with rage, scar tissue pulling the expression askew, and turned his back on her. Andover’s boys grabbed their dead leader, what was left of his brains slopping out the hole in the back of his head. It gave her a mean, vicious spark of pleasure, then she turned to check on Danny. He gave her a crooked, one-eyed smile and staggered over to lean on her. He was pallid under the bruising and stank of abuse and old sweat.

‘I’m ok,’ he slurred. ‘You’re an idiot,’ she muttered back, wiping blood off his jaw on her sleeve.

‘Wait,’ Monroe barked. He stalked by Lot, boots squelching in the bloody mud. ‘Sanborn was with you. Where is he?’

There was a pause, the scarred second poking his tongue into the gaps of long-missing teeth. His eyes flicked malevolently over Monroe’s shoulder to Lot. He pointed with his chin. ‘Give us the bitch, we’ll tell you.’

Monroe chuckled and ducked his chin, rubbing his hand along his jaw. ‘I think we’re miscommunicating,’ he said pleasantly. Putting his boot on the still groaning blond’s stomach, bits of entrails bulging as the man groaned and flopped, he said, ‘I asked a question. I didn’t open negotiations. Now talk, or we start killing again. Starting with you.’

Swinging his rifle up to his shoulder, Miles sighted along it. It was almost too overt to be a threat.

The second hesitated, but the violence had already ebbed from the rest of the tribe. He shrugged his shoulder and pulled his lips back from gappy teeth in a sour smile. ‘You think Andover came calling for the good of the boy’s health. Sanborn had run, taken his magic with him, and then you killed Garrett. Out alliance with the Patriots was fucked. Now, so are you.’

He spat at Monroe’s feet and turned away, leading the funeral procession away. For a second, Lot through Monroe was going to shoot him from spite. Instead, he grimaced and turned to look at Rachel. They both looked...defeated. After a second, Monroe shook his head and stalked grimly back into camp.

‘California,’ Danny said, shifting his weight on Lot’s shoulder. ‘We head now, we be there in a couple of weeks.’

Davies shook his head. ‘You might need to go,’ he said. ‘He was here to trade, you broke the truce. After that…no plains tribe will trust you again. We can’t trust you.’

It should have hurt more than it did, but she’d known what to expect when she shot Andover. It had still been worth it. She’d been waiting to kill Titus Andover for a very long time. 

‘That’s up to you. I guess I’m not plains anymore.’ She glanced over to Miles, giving him a tight smile. ‘The militia is the family business after all.’

Danny thumbed a crust of blood out of his eye with his thumb and glanced from her to the hovering Rachel. His mouth twisted. ‘Big mouth, Lot.’

She shrugged and poked him in the ribs. From his hitch of breath she’d been right that they were sore. ‘If we’re throwing stones, you’re the idiot who went running off on her order?’

It wasn’t as if he could argue that. Lot got him back to his tent, cleaned him up and left him to sleep. When she stepped out of the tent, Rachel was there. Lot stopped for a second, then let the tent flap fall shut behind her.

‘Rachel.’

‘Did he ever...’ she hesitated, mouth twisting around the taste of the words.

‘No,’ Lot said. ‘I was real clear what it would cost if he touched Danny.’

The woman smelled like rot and blood. Her skin was livid with bruises, wet with sores and ointment. When she woke up - eyes yellow rimmed and crusty - to Lot standing over her with a knife, she’d said, ‘Please. Please.’ Instead Lot had sawed her hair off in rough hanks, leaving it scattered on the ground.

‘Why did you hate him so much?’ Rachel asked.

Lot stared at her for a second. She’d hated her for a very long time, but as a kid she’d loved her. More importantly, Dad had loved her. ‘He whipped Danny, he beat me,’ Lot said. ‘He was an evil asshole, but I hated him because he was the one that killed Dad.’

Pleating thin lips together, Rachel’s nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. ‘You should have shot him in the stomach.’

‘Dad would have said to do it clean,’ Lot said.

‘He would have said to let it go,’ Rachel said. 

Lot shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, he’s dead.’

Dismay flitted through Rachel’s eyes and then away. She gestured at the tent. ‘Can I-’

‘Feel free,’ Lot said. 

It would serve Danny right for being an idiot. Leaving Rachel to slip into the tent, she went to find Monroe. He was drinking with Miles in the shabby little storeroom her uncle had commandeered, both of them grim and silent. Lot slid down the wall and sat on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees.

‘So we head for Denver,’ she said. ‘That was the plan originally.’

Miles grimaced and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘With the Patriots and their helicopters?’ he said. ‘We’ll never make it, kid. Best we can do now is run for Cali and see out our days on a beach.’

‘Sanborn’s pendant would have evened the playing field,’ Monroe said, draining his flask. He turned it upside and shook it, not even a drop dribbling out onto the floor. ‘Without it, we’re monkeys and the Patriots are the men of tomorrow. We might as well just erect a temple and worship them as gods. At least I’ll die with my brother by my side.’

Miles gave him a disgusted look. ‘Seriously? Idiot.’

‘Sanborn can’t have gotten far,’ Lot protested.

‘He has the pendant,’ Monroe said, frustration making his voice tight. ‘It means he can hotwire a car or jack a plane. Didn’t you ever see Ben use his?’

Lot stared at him. She’d never thought about the fact that her Dad probably had one, that he caused this so of course he had one. Of course. Not that she’d ever seen him use it. She hesitated and then pushed herself up the wall, she tugged at her belt. The loops and charms jangled, studded through the leather. A tug pulled the oldest free and she held it out, a tarnished, scuffed up teardrop of steel.

‘This was the only thing my Dad had,’ she said. ‘That what you mean?’

Monroe snatched for it, but Miles grabbed his arm. His knuckles showed white through his skin. ‘This is yours, Char...Lot. You sure?’

She tossed it to Monroe. ‘I thought about it,’ she said. ‘What’d I do with it, though? The minute I turned a car on and drove down the road, I’d be a target. You have an army, you got a plan. Now you have that.’

As Monroe crowed over his new prize, Lot absently rubbed her hand over her belt. She’d had to punch another hole. It looked like she was still pregnant and was...maybe was gonna stay that way. After all these years of taking care of Danny, she’d never thought she’d want a kid. If she was gonna have one, though, it was gonna get an empire.

‘So,’ she said. ‘What now.’

The End


End file.
